IT Spending In All Major Industries Returning To Growth

According to a new report from Gartner Inc., worldwide enterprise IT spending across all industry markets is forecast to surpass $2.4 trillion in 2010, a 4.1% increase from 2009 spending.

In 2009, IT spending by vertical market totaled $2.3 trillion, a 5.6% decline from 2008. Banking and securities, and communications, media and services will experience the greatest growth through 2014. Manufacturing and natural resources, and wholesale trade will experience the weakest growth through 2014.

“Year 2010 is panning out as a recovery for IT markets, but most buyers are playing "wait and see" in terms of IT spending until further signs of economic stabilization and sustainable recovery appear,” says Kenneth Brant, research director at Gartner.

Business leaders, led by the CFO and strategic business unit heads, had a major impact on actual IT spending made in 2009, says Brant. “Most organizations' IT budgets were not spent according to plan,” he noted.

Brant says that alternative IT sourcing, delivery and maintenance methods including virtualization, SaaS and business process utility will be getting more mainstream visibility if they can fit the business leaders' requirements for cost, time to value and application dexterity.

Additional information is available in the report "Forecast Alert: Enterprise IT Spending by Vertical Industry Market, Worldwide, 2008-2014, 1Q10 Update."

This story was reprinted with permission from Information Management.