Understanding Enterprise IT Professionals’ Information Use Habits, Preferences, and Satisfaction

Authors: Roger Strouse, Affiliate Analyst; Marc Strohlein, Chief Agility Officer; Louise Garnett, Vice President

This report is targeted at information management (IM) professionals and provides data and analysis on information use by IT professionals. IT professionals face a bewildering landscape of technologies, user needs, and business opportunities; their need for information to make solid decisions has never been more critical. While IT professionals have not traditionally relied on IM functions to provide for their information needs, Outsell has observed that most enterprise IM groups now work more closely with IT than previously and depend heavily on IT professionals to support a variety of information management applications. This report is based on Outsell’s most recent end-user survey (December 2008), which sought to better understand the unique information needs and habits of specific functional roles. The report contains:

- An overview profile of IT-professional information consumers, including how they use information and their satisfaction levels with 14 vendors;
- Data and analysis of IT professionals’ information habits and unmet needs;
- A detailed look at IT professionals’ use of interactive media and social networking;
- Data and analysis of IT professionals’ information spending and purchasing;
- Imperatives for information managers who want to build a strong user base within IT.