Gartner: Industry IT spend to fall 6.8 per cent

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Industry [a href="[a href="" target="_blank"]" target="_blank"]spending on IT[/a] will slide by 6.8 per cent to $2.28 trillion this year, Gartner has predicted.

While bad news was likely expected by many this year, Gartner has some good news too, predicting growth of 2.3 per cent next year.

However, the spending varies by vertical industry. “Our expectations for when the market will return to positive growth in IT spending — and for how strong that growth will be — vary significantly by industry sector, with the majority of industries expected to enter a period of sustained, positive growth in 2011,” said Kenneth Brant, research director at Gartner, in a statement.

“The three largest industry segments in 2008 — financial services, manufacturing and government — will remain the largest industry markets worldwide through 2013,” he added.

Despite an 8.3 per cent decline in spending on IT this year, finance will lead the way with $502.6 billion.

Agriculture, mining and construction had the worst decline, or 9.2 per cent.

National and international government spending slid just 3.6 per cent, showing much more stability than any other sector, and still ranked third in spending, with $239 billion. Local government was the second most stable, with a 5.5 per cent decrease.

IT vendors looking to pick up a slice of the spending pie should make sure to highlight potential cost savings to chief financial officers.

“This deep and prolonged recession has the potential to create a new market environment with stronger spheres of financial and business influence in many industries' IT buying centres,” said Brant.

He added: “Vendors should develop and/or expand financial models for project justification and sales training on selling to the financial buyer and business leader.”

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