Gains in automation and reliability are having an impact on how IT departments are spending their money, according to data from two independent sources.

The Hackett Group, a management consulting firm, says its benchmark data shows the cost of supporting one end user or employee in a business has fallen by about 17% over a 10-year period. That includes all the costs associated with the user, from PCs to applications, including business apps like ERP systems.

The most successful IT departments are devoting “substantially fewer” resources to run IT, said Hackett, freeing up money for new technological capabilities, functionality and services. For those departments, the 10-year cost reductions may be as high as 27%.

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