Small business leaders will devote almost a third of their new purchases in 2012 to Internet, IT and other related services or 31%.

According to the latest survey from this newsletter’s parent, Information Strategies, Inc., the second major category will be healthcare services at 11%.

Among the items to be purchased this year are new pc/Mac equipment; SaaS services, and Internet services.

Significantly, equipment leasing and other financial services will devour 10+% of budgets for new expenditures.

In comparison, a similar survey for 2011 indicated the purchases for Internet, IT and other related services were expected to be about 25%.

In focus groups and follow-up interviews, respondents said they had not spent all of the monies they had anticipated in 2011 but rather postponed purchases in the wake of the economic slowdown.

Respondents said healthcare costs were about the same from previous years with many saying they had somehow mitigated premium increases by reducing benefits.

Respondents said they thought 2012 would not see these same reductions as they thought it would impact employee morale.

Many respondents said they had exhausted internal financial resources and expected to reach out to outside sources for funding.

While office equipment and supply needs were projected at 5.2% of new purchases respondent said they were actively seeking new ways of reducing costs.

Fully four of five respondents said they had instituted practices to reduce expenditures in these areas.

One potential growth area surfaced in these surveys and focus groups was a desire by many company leaders to eliminate as much printed material as possible.

“The need for a paperless office was clearly evident in our thinking,” one focus group member said.

“We need to get an integrated approach to our work that eliminates constant paper shuffling,” said another.

One other interesting statistic from the survey, marketing investment is only up slightly, (4.5%) for a majority of respondents.