In this down economy, you’d think most companies would be postponing their IT investments. But a recent study from Robert Half Technology shows this isn’t so.

In its January survey of 1,400 CIOs from U.S. companies with 100 or more employees, the research firm found that seven out of 10 plan to invest in IT initiatives over the next 12 months.

The study shows that a majority of CIOs have information security on their minds. Roughly 57 percent said they plan to invest in IT security over the next year. This is due to the increasing need to protect customer information and other business-critical data from both external and internal attacks. Technology executives in the financial services and transportation sectors cited security most often, with 59 percent and 58 percent of the responses, respectively.

Also ranking high on the list are virtualization projects. Roughly 28 percent of CIOs said they plan to invest in this area. That’s because added budget pressures are forcing many companies to focus on more cost-effective solutions for servers, storage and networking. Virtualization tools enable greater consolidation, lower hardware costs, and reduced space and power requirements. Nearly four in 10 (39 percent) of CIOs at large (1,000+ employees) and midsize (500 to 999 employees) companies plan to invest in this area.

Data center efficiency is another area that CIOs plan to focus on in 2009. About 27 percent said they will invest in this area for the purpose of improving efficiency within the data center in order to achieve longer-term cost savings. Companies are realizing that if they don’t improve efficiency, they will face more costly expansions and upgrades in the future.

On the communications side of things, about a quarter, or 26 percent, of the CIOs surveyed said they plan to invest in VoIP over the next 12 months. Most cite cost savings as the main benefit, but advanced functionality such as presence, unified communications and integration with CRM systems are also among the benefits that companies gain when they invest in VoIP technology.

Perhaps not surprisingly, a significant number of CIOs, about 26 percent, plan to invest software-as-a-ervice (SaaS (News - Alert)) solutions. Again, cost is the main advantage: With SaaS, companies don’t need to invest in any additional hardware or infrastructure. Rather they simply “lease” the software based on a per-use model (whether by the minute, per seat or using a subscription model). Since applications and data are stored and hosted on the Internet and accessed remotely, this model removes the burden of maintenance and support, software license upgrades.

Rounding out the top 10 areas where CIOs plan to make investment over the next 12 months are:

6. Green IT (20 percent)

7. Business intelligence (19 percent)

8. Social networking (18 percent)

9. Web 2.0 (17 percent)

10. Outsourcing (16 percent)

 

"Although times are lean, many companies are finding that they can't afford to postpone IT investments that lead to increased security, efficiencies or revenues," said Dave Willmer, executive director or Robert Half Technology (News - Alert), in a release. "Organizations also are trying to make sure they are prepared for growth when conditions improve, and enhancing their IT infrastructure is part of that process."

Company executives are also planning to invest in software and systems that improve customer service over the next few years as well. For example, earlier this week, DMG Consulting released a report showing that there is increasing interest in analytics software for the contact center, for the purpose of improving agent performance and reacting quickly to changes in customer behavior.

The report identifies two new types of analytics software geared for the contact center: Customer experience analytics (CEA), which is an externally-oriented application that assesses the customer experience during every touch point (self-service, agent interactions and the fulfillment process), and desktop analytics (DA), which is an internally-focused solution that measures departmental performance and the agent's interaction with desktop servicing applications. It predicts that the number of CEA and DA solutions deployed will grow rapidly over the next three years, approaching 1,000 by the end of 2011. What’s more, the number of DA seats is expected to exceed 1.5 million during the same period.