To understand how the recession, particularly the collapse of Wall Street and the housing market, is affecting technology decision-makers in the financial services industries, Forrester sorted through more than 20,000 inquiries that it received during 2008. While banks continue to focus on the perennial issues of online customer experience and channels, a big and growing concern for CIOs and enterprise architects at insurers is their core business applications. In both sectors, inquiries on these topics came from a wide variety of user roles, pointing to the need for marketing and sales executives to understand their customers' complex organizational buying dynamics.