During January 2009, Intrinsic Executive Search conducted a survey of CXO and VP Level Executives who work in the European Enterprise Software markets for their opinions on the performance of various technology areas in 2009, the most difficult European countries to hire quality staff and general opinions on the European market.

A total of 134 participants took part in the survey. All participants, to the best of the their knowledge, currently work at CXO, VP or Director Level in the European

Enterprise and Banking software market sectors. Intrinsic Executive Search surveyed a cross spread of Executives across Europe, purposely targeting different software sectors within the market. Here are four findings from the study.

1. Risk Management Software - The Number One Prediced Software Area in 2009
Risk Management software is predicted to the number one technology performer in 2009, followed by Web analytics, Business Intelligence and last year's winner in fourth Security Software. This data is supported by The Securities Industries and Financial Markets Association's survey during 2008, as Risk Management IT spending are one of several important building blocks necessary to mitigate the financial impact of future disruptions.

Web Analytics and Business Intelligence followed second and third respectively. The Web Analytics Association 2009 survey showed that over 96 percent of respondents indicated that they plan to increase or maintain current spending on web analytics in 2009.

The biggest fallers since a year ago were Banking and Retail software.

2. Most Difficult European Country to Hire Quality Staff
France remains unchanged from last year's survey as the hardest country to find quality staff followed closely by Germany. Maybe stricter employment laws have enhanced this situation.

It is fair to say that hiring in Europe continues to create headaches for many of the respondents. The difference in labor and social/benefit laws across the European member states creates a high degree of confusion.

The findings appear to mirror the issues that our American start-up clients seem to have with hiring in Europe. That being it is complicated, potentially risky with pitfalls and no continuity across Europe.

Finding high caliber talent in 2008 was as tough as in 2007 according to 65% of the respondents, whilst 15% found it harder.

3. Opinion on the European Market for 2009
The third section's results include confirmation that deals have slowed down in the last year, becoming protracted due to the economic downturn. Further, Merger and Acquisition activity will be less prominent in 2009 after the consolidation in the software sector over the last few years. In terms of whether all the big players such as SAP, Oracle, IBM, Infor competing against smaller firms, interestingly, 70% of the response do not agree that is will become harder to compete against the big vendors.

Venture Capital firms may be interested to see that 33% think working for a VC backed firm is less appealing than before, signaling that perhaps customers are increasingly finding it riskier when buying from start up vendors.

4. Levels of Enterprise Software Spending for 2009
This section asked what areas of the market will invest in software compared to a year earlier. 49% of the respondents believe Central Government will increase software spending this year, whilst Government (34%), Pharmaceuticals (23%) and Oil and Gas (19%) followed. From the results, Investment and Retail banking will take a big hit this year along with Automotive.

For more information from Intrinsic's survey of European software executives, including 2009 forecasts for specific technology areas, email Ben at bew@intrinsicsearch.com for the full report.


Ben Watkins is the European director of Intrinsic Executive Search.