In addition to being an industry in and of itself IT is, in essence, an enabler for all the others… This capacity has become a fundamental competitiveness requirement… As the application of information and communications technologies grow, IT has become one of the most ubiquitous clusters, a necessary service attached to almost all competitive clusters (Regional Technology Strategies Inc. 2003, p. 3).

The City of Ballarat and the Ballarat ICT Cluster Steering Committee have recognised the Ballarat ICT Cluster may play a critical and enabling role by generating synergies within and between different industries. The preliminary strategy articulated for the Ballarat ICT Cluster recognised the importance of working with traditional industries to identify ways in which ICT sector can best support local organisations in achieving this fundamental competitiveness requirement.

All businesses are increasingly reliant on utilising and maintaining ICT technologies relevant to their sector. Those that compete effectively in regional, national and global markets are increasingly striving to generate time savings and efficiencies through the transmission, communication and rapid understanding of large quantifies of information.

It has been identified that the Ballarat ICT Cluster should include representation from all types of interested industries. Ballarat's top three industry sectors, which combine to provide 60.1 percent of employment, are education, health and community services (23 percent); wholesale and retail trade (21.1 percent) and manufacturing (16 percent). In each of these sectors there is a fundamental requirement to utilise ICT.

In this initial research phase the results of a web-based survey of non-ICT firms are presented to provide some indicators of service needs and the current level of collaboration between the ICT sector and other industries and market segments.