Bracing for the COVID-19 Technology Bump

Bracing for the COVID-19 Technology Bump

Analytics and cybersecurity projects all set to drive enterprise IT spending

A new study commissioned by Google on how the coronavirus pandemic will affect information technology budgets has found that 60% of enterprises surveyed expect either no change, or to increase their spending this year. The growth will be driven by investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Data Analytics and Data Security. This will create new opportunities for data science and cybersecurity professionals, besides those working in IoT as well as in digital transformation.

Many end-customers were re-evaluating transformation projects in a bid to find greater ROI and efficiencies from those implementations. This should come as no surprise to partners focused on solutions that provide business impact, which will benefit from close strategic relationships with clients – that is, understanding the business and quantifiable value of the solutions being deployed.The remaining 40% in the survey carried out by International Data Corp. (IDC) said they anticipate reduced spending due to COVID-19.

However, more enterprises are expecting an economic recovery early next year, with two-thirds believing they will either hold the line or increase their infrastructure spending in 2021.

The survey found that growth in IT spending is being driven by the emergence of new workloads – including artificial intelligence, data analytics, IoT and data security. Perhaps a more important view of market opportunity is in spend across leading versus legacy technologies. Even though overall IT spend is expected to grow 5.7% over the next five years, a much higher growth is envisagedfrom what IDC calls the 3rd Platform (i.e., Cloud, Big Data, social and mobile) and innovation accelerators (i.e., AI, IoT,next-gen security, Augmented/Virtual Reality, robotics, and 3D printing).

The big winners will be Cloud providers such as Google and competitors such as Amazon Web Services Inc., Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp. –all of which are benefiting from an enterprise shift to a multi-Cloud strategy that allows customers to keep a better handle on their internal data while taking advantage of pay-as-you-go pricing models.

IDC predicts that global spending on IT software, hardware and services will top US$1.3 trillion this year, growing by double-digits compared to the year before. It says, software services are the primary growth driver, with DevOps and SecOps – or security operations tools – expected to account for 43% of global IT spending this year, which comes toUS$571 billion. Hardware spending will come to US$435 billion, accounting for a third of investments;while software spending will reach US$315 billion, or 24% of spending budgets.

IDC also outlined another trend that isexpected to drive IT spending over the next five years, which it calls the “3rd Platform.” The 3rd Platform is a framework that IDC declares will advance beyond Cloud and Big Data to encompass data-generating mobile and social media services, driven by 5G wireless deployments. It will also include the “innovation accelerators” (AI, IoT, next-gen security, AR/VR, robotics and 3D printing) mentioned above.

“Innovation accelerator growth rates are expected to be the highest, at 17% over the next five years,” IDC said. “The 3rd Platform also has low double-digit growth — but only when mobile, the growth of which has slowed, is removed.”

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