It’s predicted to get harder to sell IT this year…which is better than impossible I suppose.  According to this NY Times article and research from IDC:

"Overall growth in technology spending may fall from 7 percent last year to 4 percent or less this year"

The backdrop on this is that it’s not like spending has been going bonkers over the past 5 years especially in enterprise software and more specifically B2B investments.  I had a recent chat with the head of e-business at a large distribution company where he lamented the continued "hangover" from the tech bubble and the empty promises (and bad investments) from so much vaporware.

Improved access and more economically tolerable consumption models (SaaS/on-demand) make this a less difficult (but not easy) road.  Hubspan (yes, a shameless plug but our strategy is relevant to my point) is approaching this with a blend of self-service and managed service capabilities.  As budgets tighten further, companies will seek more economical ways to address the B2B agenda be that through outsourcing B2B projects completely or choosing to take on initiatives with a more attractive on-demand consumption approach versus the big dollars historically required for integration software, servers, and staff.