Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.8 trillion in 2014, a 3.1 percent increase from $3.7 trillion in 2013, according to the latest forecast by Gartner Inc. In 2013, the market experienced flat growth, growing 0.4 percent year over year.
The increase for 2014 is expected to be driven in part by a rise in data analytics investments, according to the research firm. “Investment is coming from exploiting analytics to make B2C processes more efficient and improve customer marketing efforts,” Richard Gordon, managing vice president at Gartner, said in a statement. “Investment will also be aligned to B2B analytics, particularly in the SCM [supply chain management] space, where annual spending is expected to grow 10.6 percent in 2014.”
The focus is on enhancing the customer experience throughout the presales, sales and post sales processes, Gordon said.
Spending on devices including PCs, ultramobiles, mobile phones and tablets contracted 1.2 percent in 2013, but is expected to grow 4.3 percent in 2014. Enterprise software spending growth continues to be the strongest throughout the forecast period, with 2014 annual growth expected to be 6.8 percent.
The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is a leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. Gartner's IT spending forecast methodology relies heavily on rigorous analysis of sales by thousands of vendors across a range of IT products and services.
This story originally appeared at
