According to a recent Gartner report, worldwide ICT spending is projected to total US$4.7 trillion in 2023, an increase of 4.3% over 2022.
The report noted that, because CIOs continue to lose the competition for IT talent, they’re shifting spending to technologies that enable automation and efficiency to drive growth at scale with fewer employees.
The software segment is projected to see double-digit growth in 2023 as organisations increase utilisation and reallocate spending to core applications and platforms that support efficiency gains, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications.
However, the report does come with a warning for other sectors of the ICT market – while the overall outlook for enterprise ICT spending is positive, devices spending will decline 8.6% in 2023 due to the ongoing impact of inflation on consumer purchasing power. The devices segment is experiencing one of its worst growth years on record. Even as inflation eases slightly in some regions, macroeconomic factors are still negatively impacting discretionary spending and lengthening device refresh cycles. Devices spending is not expected to recover to 2021 levels until at least 2026.
While generative artificial intelligence (AI) is top-of-mind for many business and IT leaders, it’s not yet significantly impacting ICT spending levels. In the longer-term, generative AI will primarily be incorporated into enterprises through existing spending.