Reducing costs has replaced improving security as CIOs' top business priority, research from distributor Arrow has suggested.

Echo Research quizzed 200 US IT executives in April on behalf of Arrow's Enterprise Computing Solutions (ECS) arm.

More than three-quarters (77 per cent) listed 'reducing costs' as the most important business issue, making it their number-one concern.

Improving security/reducing risk topped the equivalent poll last year with 78 per cent of the vote, but was picked by only 38 per cent of respondents this time round.

IT budgets are also expected to come under more scrutiny this year. Some 40 per cent said they expected budgets to stay the same in 2009, with an equal proportion (29 per cent) expecting them to decrease or increase.

Contrast that with last year, when 61 per cent said they planned to increase spending on IT and only 10 per cent expected budget cuts.

Robert Spee, director of marketing for the Midmarket and IBM Groups of Arrow ECS, said: "This study confirms many trends that resellers might have suspected but didn't have concrete evidence of before."