CIO Crowdsourcing Poll Finance – Security Spending for Small Companies vs Large Companies

Smaller companies are spending less on IT Security. . .

Percent of budget for Security.

A remarkable difference we found in the survey results was the percentage of IT budget spent on security by companies with fewer than 100 employees and companies with greater than 100 employees.  The smaller companies consistently showed that they spend of 5% of their IT budget on security.  However, a larger company may spend 20% of their IT budget on security.                                                                                                        

Percent of budget for end user support.              

Across the board, we saw an average of 15% of IT budgets being spent on end user support.  On average, smaller companies (fewer than 100 employees) appear to be spending more of their IT budgets on new business systems, 13.75%.  An average of 10% of larger companies’ IT budgets is spent on new business systems.                                                  

Percent of budget for System maintenance.

Smaller companies responded that they spend a range of portions of their IT budgets on system mainenance, with a median of 25%.  The average of  portion IT budgets used for system maintenance by larger companies who responded was 25%.                                                     

 Percent of budget for System refresh projects.

From our survey, we found companies with fewer than 100 employees spend an average of 15% of their IT budgets on system refresh projects.  The average of  portion IT budgets used for system refresh projects comapanies with greater than 100 employees in the survey was 10%.