IT shelters from financial storm

Welcome to the 2008 edition of MIS 100, The Australian Financial Review's annual record of progress in technology in the nation's largest organisations.

We find that with such a widely read and anticipated issue, there are always questions that come in after publication about the validity of the rankings and the information we include about various IT vendors. Therefore we include an explanation of the methodology on page 8. Please take the time to have a read and drop me an email if you want any further clarification.

The information comes from exhaustive ongoing research by both the journalists who write the profiles and Fairfax Business Research. So for those readers who have been in contact with our eager researchers, who asked intimate questions about the internal workings of your organisations, I say thanks and urge you to take the time to speak with the researchers again throughout the year.

Alternatively, if you want to make sure we have the right information about your organisation, please get in touch with me and I'll point you in the right direction.

This issue serves as a fantastic barometer for the atmosphere within the IT industry each year. You can generally test the health of the industry by noting the tone of the majority of the company profiles within. Happily, this issue continues in the positive vein of the past couple of years - it includes a diverse range of new and innovative work under way across all industry sectors.

I have heard whispers about the potential for the precarious global financial climate to wreak havoc on IT budgets, but there certainly appears to be no sign of this in Australia so far - whether we are just in the tranquillity before the tempest remains to be seen, but there are few portents of gloom.

As you will see from the tables that follow my words of wisdom, education departments around the nation lead the listings in this year's issue - as they have for as long as I care to remember. These are interesting times for this endlessly evolving sector. Funds are flowing into it from federal and some state budgets, so I think it's a fair bet that we will see these educational authorities sitting on the top perches again next year.

But the issue is about more than rankings. The order is not based on merit, but on size of operation, and there is great value for readers working in organisations both large and small to keep abreast of what their peers have been up to and what they have on their plates for the year ahead.

So we trust you'll enjoy this snapshot of Australian business technology use. We look forward to seeing how many interesting new projects pan out over the year ahead.

Paul Smith, editor MIS

Industry snap shot

Organisations face IT challenges aplenty this year, including a skills shortage, legacy system quirks and headaches, and pressure to reduce environmental footprints, Paul Smith writes. Read more 

Click on a graph to enlarge

Application usage

CIO reports to

Database usage

IT budget

System usage

How we selected: The 50 companies profiled in the following pages are the ones CIOs cannot afford to ignore. They are the big players, those that influence the buying patterns around Australia and the rest of the world. They will be in CIOs' minds whenever they have potential purchasing decisions to make, no matter what their areas of expertise. To qualify for the list, the companies must have a significant presence in the Australian market and derive a large portion of their revenue from outside their domestic markets. These companies were selected by a panel of 30 judges across the Asia-Pacific region.

How we selected: There is a vibrant and increasingly competitive local IT sector, so the Strategic 100 has dedicated these pages entirely to Australian and New Zealand-based vendors. The fierce competition to make it onto the list of the most strategically important operators in the region has certainly proved impressive. Our expert judging panel chose the following 25 from an extensive cast of local players. These companies were selected by the Australian-based judges.

How we selected: The 25 Rising Stars are often very new businesses, but ones that show signs of seriously influencing the way technology is bought or deployed. Many of these companies can expect rapid growth, to make acquisitions, be acquired, or otherwise significantly increase their presence in the marketplace over the next 12 months. This is an early warning to take note of companies that are already impressing savvy CIOs. The list was compiled after suggestions were made by our expert judges throughout the Asia-Pacific region and following discussions with MIS editorial teams internationally.

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