Even in an economic downturn, companies won't be cutting from their IT budgets, Epicor senior vice president and chief marketing officer John Hiraoka assured attendees at Epicor Perspectives (www.epicor.com), held earlier this fall at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nev.

Technology is productivity, he said, highlighting studies and analysts who predict resilience in the IT sector. Hiraoka referenced Cisco Systems CEO John Chamber's keynote address at Gartner ITEXPO in mid-October, who said there will be an “instant replay” in technology-led productivity gains, with collaborative IT intertwined with business strategy.

Rod Winger, Epicor senior director of product marketing, said that even in a down economy, companies understand that the road to recovery is the leveraging of business process and innovation.

“They don't even see a reduction in IT spending,” he said. “You can't predict the future, but the economy has been on a downturn since this time last year and we have not seen [a reduction] yet.”

Around the same time this conference was being held, the International Foodservice Distributors Association came out with its 2008 Productivity Financial Report, saying pretty much the same thing: IT expenses are up.

To help control operating costs, distributors are re-vamping or replacing systems to provide informational links between their sales, procurement, accounting, inventory, warehousing, and transportation functions. Others are purchasing or upgrading their computerized routing systems, adding GPS to their existing capabilities, switching to voice recognition in their warehouse management systems, or adding transportation management systems that include inbound freight controls.