The months of April and May, in recent years, have often been the harbinger of good times for Indian enterprises. As virtually every sector has been recording growth, this period of publication of annual results has proved to be a source of unbridled optimism for all stakeholders. These annual results might capture the growing toplines and healthier bottomlines as well as stronger P/E ratios, but they have not been able to successfully register another crucial facet of India Inc particularly visible in the last few years-the IT spend.

Yet, the fact is that hardly anyone can ignore the growing trend of automation across Indian enterprises. Not only has it led to more sophisticated usage of IT by Indian organizations to conduct their businesses, but, more importantly, it has resulted in increasing spends on IT across sectors. And while the annual reports of companies might fall short in tracking this growing expenditure on IT, the task has been undertaken eminently by the DQ-IDC Megaspenders Survey.

This year has been no exception, as the survey has tracked the pattern of spending on IT by various Indian organizations during 2007. However, with changing times, maintaining the nomenclature of the survey as Megaspenders might not remain politically correct too long. In these days, when corporate fiscal discipline has become sacrosanct to any organization's well being, it is undeniable that many CIOs would flinch from publicly proclaiming themselves as megaspenders.

It is probably this perception of the stigma of negative connotation that has prevented the likes of HDFC Bank, LIC, Hutch, ONGC and a few other leviathans from participating in the DQ-IDC Megaspenders Survey 2007. Not just them, many of the CIOs from the 211 organizations that responded have desisted from allowing us to divulge their IT spends for the year. In light of this scenario, we have decided to only list down the Top 50 organizations with the highest IT spends, but not publish the exact expenditure figures.