Beancounters at Gartner have added up some numbers and reached the conclusion that IT spending is set to rebound in 2021.
Global IT spending will reach $4 trillion in 2021, Gartner claims, an increase of 8.4 percent on the previous year.
Spending on devices is set to rocket by 14 pe cent this year to $755.8 billion. Enterprise software is the second-fastest-growing segment this year with spending set to grow by 10.8 percent to $571.7 billion. IT services spending will grow nine percent to 1.2 trillion, claims Gartner, data centre systems by 7.7 percent to 247.5 billion and communications services by 4.6 percent to $1.45 trillion
Gartner research VP John-David Lovelock said IT spending will move away from the “knee-jerk” spending seen last year.
“As hybrid work takes hold, CIOs will focus on spending that enables innovation, not just task completion”, said Lovelock.
Gartner warned that due to increasing economic uncertainty due to COVID, CIOs will focus their spending on completing digital business plans aimed at enhancing their company’s value.
“IT no longer just supports corporate operations as it traditionally has, but is fully participating in business value delivery. Not only does this shift IT from a back-office role to the front of the business, but it also changes the source of funding from an overhead expense that is maintained, monitored and sometimes cut, to the thing that drives revenue”, said Lovelock. [Parsing error. What does this mean? Ed.]
