Business confidence has slumped to levels last seen in 2010, but canny CIOs can look to save money by opting for hosted solutions, rather than in-house systems.
The Outlook 2012 survey from Baker Tilly Accountants found that only 54 per cent of those polled are confident about their prospects for the year ahead, with just quarter (27 per cent) feeling positive about their sector as a whole.
Seven-in-ten (69 per cent) of bosses indicated that increased costs were their biggest worry this year, but that's something that companies can take action on by choosing hosted solutions, as they will provide firms with sizable savings on their capital expenditure.
That's because businesses won't need to invest in entire new systems as they run over our Next Generation Network.
This also provides the added benefit of future-proofing the hosted solution so that upgrades will be simple to implement.