Utilities and the national and international government sectors will experience the strongest growth rates in 2010, with IT spending growing 4.7 and 4 percent respectively in 2010. Communications media and services is expected to grow 3.6 percent in 2010, and health care is expected to grow 3.2 percent. Other industries experiencing the highest growth rates are banking and securities, retail, and manufacturing and natural resources.
Gartner revised its growth prediction from earlier this year. “The enterprise IT market will certainly return to growth in 2010, but we now expect it will grow by only 2.9 percent globally, down from 4.1 percent growth we had forecast earlier this year,” Kenneth Brant, research director at Gartner, was quoted to say. Brant advised technology providers to exercise caution with regard to the economy and its impacts on enterprise IT markets.
"We're advising our technology provider clients to prepare business plans for 2011 on the basis of our most-likely scenario for enterprise IT spending growth — 3.5 percent," Brant said. He also stated that companies should act now to “develop contingencies to mitigate the risk of zero growth in 2011, a scenario that carries a lower probability but a much-higher potential impact.”
Gartner urges technology providers to continue to promote IT solutions that deliver "cost optimization" through 2011, which will be a persistent and overriding value for IT buyers even as markets return to growth.
Additional information is available in the report "Forecast: Enterprise IT Spending by Vertical Industry Market, Worldwide, 2008-2014, 2Q10 Update."
Julie Langenkamp is editor-in-chief of Information Management. She can be reached at julie.langenkamp@sourcemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @JulieLangenkamp.
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