IDC is projecting U.S. IT spending to grow by 6% and Forrester is projecting 6.5%. Forrester reduced their projection from 7.5% because of the sequester. This is modest growth but it is greater than the overall GDP growth and considering the focus on reducing costs this is encouraging for the IT industry. The priorities of the spending according to a Protiviti survey are:
1. Mobile Commerce
2. Management and Classification of Data
3. Social Media
4. Business Continuity
5. Risk Management
6. IT Infrastructure Planning
7. IT Asset Management
Mobility is clearly a priority for everyone as mobile devices become so much more powerful. The cloud is not listed but is often the technology utilized to support these IT priorities. This is the way it must be as it does not make sense to move to the cloud because it is a trend it needs to be done as a compelling method to deliver business continuity, risk management, mobile commerce etc.
Source: “IDC says tech spending will grow by 6% this year, the same rate as 2012” by By Patrick Thibodeau, COMPUTERWORLD UK http://tinyurl.com/aoce2ds
Source: Protiviti 2013 IT Priorities Survey http://www.protiviti.com/itsurvey