Business continuity and security are the main concerns for chief information officers (CIOs) in Europe, according to a new study by IDC.

The research firm surveyed 1,000 key ICT decision makers and found that business continuity was a pressing concern, as businesses across Europe become increasingly reliant on IT.

In fact, 31 per cent of respondents cited security and business continuity represented the biggest concern, while 25 per cent mentioned the issue of integrating IT and communications, 17 per cent cited compliance with government regulation, and 15 per cent said that delivering flexible IT solutions was crucial.

As well as this, the research indicates that the adoption of Enterprise 2.0 technologies is likely to increase greatly over the coming six to 18 months, with the biggest uptake likely to be in the UK, Poland and Russia.

Web-based voice/data, unified messaging and social networking tools will become popular, according to the respondents.

ICT budgets in European companies were found to be an average of eight per cent of the total budget.