Despite a 0.3 percent lower-than-previous global IT spend for 2016, Gartner analysts are projecting almost 3 percent in growth for next year, spurred by the growth of interconnected IT infrastructure.
The IT analytics firm projected a 2.9 percent growth for 2017, with worldwide IT spending reaching US$3.5 trillion (A$4.6 trillion), on the back of a digital platform, named civilisation infrastructure, that consists of traditional IT systems, customer experience, internet of things, intelligence and the ecosystem foundation.
Gartner's senior vice president and global head of research Peter Sondergaard said the elements of civilisation infrastructure were unified.
"Your new digital platform will allow you to participate in the evolving world of business, government, and consumer ecosystems. Because ecosystems are the next evolution for digital. It’s how you compete at scale," he said.Driven
The civilisation infrastructure will be "the most important thing IT accomplishes in the next decade", according to Sondergaard.
Gartner also reported worldwide spending on software was projected to grow 7.2 percent, and 4.8 percent in IT services.
According to the analyst, chief information officers should modernise the existing IT systems, specially data centres and networks, as it will be necessary to make cloud, mobile, social and data core capabilities. virtual customer engagement and artificial intelligence were stated as two points CIOs should focus on.
Sondergaard said ecosystems were the future of digital, and that IT executives needed to build the capability to interact with customers, partners, adjacent industries and also competitors to transform the traditional ecosystem into a digital one.
On the subject of IoT, Gartner suggests focus should shift from just adding products, to working on processes, workflows and data integration, claiming two-third of organisations have had to rework their existing IT systems to accommodate IoT.
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