How has the credit crunch affected you?
Jinfo Blog

22nd May 2009

By Penny Crossland

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Sue Hill Recruitment’s (http://www.suehill.com) latest Friday breakfast meeting for senior information professionals and executives working in the information sector (see Tim Buckley Owen’s report on the March event at http://www.vivavip.com/go/e17539) addressed the issue of the credit crunch and its effects on those in the industry. Attendees representing the recruitment, law, financial services, academia and consulting sectors enjoyed a sumptuous breakfast and a lively discussion. We all agreed that the credit crunch has had a profound effect on how corporate and academic information services are perceived by senior management and that the financial crisis has made budget negotiations a more challenging task. Decision-making on aspects such as recruiting and purchasing seems to be more protracted and involve more senior staff. Budget restrictions mean that directors are taking more of an interest in the financial aspects of their information departments, rather than leaving decision-making to middle management. Consequently, vendors are having to work harder at nurturing client relationships and can no longer take automatic renewal of contracts for granted. A representative from an academic library found her current biggest challenge was having to restructure her department – never a pleasant task. Interestingly, it was observed that the credit crunch had affected sectors at different times, with the demise of some sectors having a knock-on effect on others. While the banking sector was badly hit in 2008, recruitment companies were feeling the effects of the downturn at the beginning of this year. However, we also explored the idea that the current straitened times do have a positive effect: redundancy or a downturn in work should be viewed as an opportunity to take stock and to re-evaluate one’s position in the work environment. Now is a good time to think laterally and explore other avenues in the information sector. We look forward to more scintillating debate in the coming months.

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