Sarbox Compliance and Technology

Sarbox Compliance and Technology:

Technology is playing a much bigger role at companies faced with Sarbanes-Oxley requirements.

Stephen Taub, CFO.com

According to a Forrester Research survey of 878 technology decision-makers at North American enterprises, 77 percent indicate that their technology spending will grow this year in response to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

That's a vast increase compared with last year's survey, in which 85 percent of executives indicated that Sarbox would have either a neutral or only slightly upward pressure on their technology spending plans, according to an account of the Forrester survey published by CIO-Today.com.

The survey also indicated a big difference in how companies plan to spend additional money.

In this year's report, a little more than 60 percent of respondents said they will spend more on security as a result of the law; 52 percent said they will be buying more storage products; 40 percent said they will increase spending on specialized process control technologies; 39 percent said they will buy additional records management applications; 36 percent will spend more on business intelligence applications; and nearly one-third of respondents said they will increase spending on ERP applications.

Most of those surveyed last year said that any increased spending would go toward consulting services, not applications, reported CIO-Today.com."