Helicopter transportation company PHI Inc. will be watching its bottom line carefully as it heads into 2011, but there are several IT projects that it will deploy nonetheless. Projects that save money, improve processes or enhance customer service will get the green light while many others are put on hold, reports ComputerWorld's Julia King.

PHI's CIO, James Quinn, is looking to cut costs by renegotiating IT contracts and outsourcing basic operations. Quinn's approach is not unusual, ComputerWorld found in its 2011 Forecast survey. The greatest challenge for IT executives this year is budget pressures, and their top priority is further reducing costs. 

Many companies are pursuing customer-facing projects despite the continued economic pressures, King reports. Rural Community Insurance Services in Anoka, Minn., plans to streamline its online customer interaction system. CIO Rick Greenwood is implementing a system to prepopulate information fields that customers traditionally had to supply because the company is seeking ways to increase customer efficiency as well as internal efficiency.

In a similar fashion, the top IT priority at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services is automating birth, marriage, death and divorce documents so they are available to citizens online. The vital records project aims to simultaneously reduce IT costs and improve customer service.

King's article looks at the cost-cutting plans of the CIOs of Southern Co., GAF Materials Corp., supermarket chain Haggen Inc., and other organizations.

For more:
- see Julia King's article at ComputerWorld

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