Gartner Forecasts Slow Growth in Enterprise IT Spending

Over the next five years, corporate IT spending will represent a period of timid and at times lackluster growth with spending totaling $2.8 trillion in 2014, according to market research firm Gartner (News - Alert) Inc. (http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp) The market watcher’s latest figures show that worldwide enterprise IT spending is estimated to reach $2.5 trillion in 2011, a 3.1 percent increase from 2010 spending of $2.4 trillion (http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/10/18/5074526.htm). With 2.4 percent increase over 2009, the 2010 enterprise IT spending is on track at $2.4 trillion, says Gartner. This data was presented by Gartner’s senior vice president and global head of research Peter Sondergaard at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Fla.

In a statement, Sondergaard said, “Several key vertical industries, such as manufacturing and financial services will not see IT budgets recover to pre-2008 levels before 2012 or 2013.”  He aded, “Emerging economies continue to be the locomotive of enterprise IT spending, substantially outpacing developed economies.”

 “The transformation in IT spending will accelerate individual corporate change,” Sondergaard continued. “We are on a one way trip towards the IT driven intelligence society – driven by the consumer – where growing access to this growing universe of data gives us the opportunity to not only make better decisions, but to make smarter decisions,” stated Sondergaard.

Improvements in IT access and skills can, directly or indirectly, contribute to individual welfare, increase national productivity and output and improve productivity. A broad range of socio-economic benefits are also apparent, including better educational performance and other developmental goals.

“At the heart of the change, the next 20 years will be intelligence drawn from information,” explained Sondergaard. “Information will be the ‘oil of the 21st century’. It will be the resource running our economy in ways not possible in the past,” asserted Sondergaard.

According to Gartner, four broad trends will support change in IT, and in the economy, the next 10 years. These include Cloud, business impact of social computing, context aware computing, and pattern based strategy.

“The combination of these four trends creates an unimaginable force impacting not just IT and the IT industry, but the capability of business and government. Each of these four trends is about driving IT business value. Whether IT acts now or not, the combination of these trends will drive dramatic change in your enterprises’ business model and strategy,”concluded Sondergaard.