According to the global research firm Gartner about three-fourth of large Indian enterprises are planning to increase their IT spending in 2013. Further, in 2012, the large Indian enterprises had an average IT budget of $12.2 million.
The research firm has identified India as one of the fastest-growing IT services markets in the world. The growth in the industry offers Indian service providers with an opportunity to capitalise on planned increases in IT spending among Indian enterprises in 2013.
Gartner?s assessment of IT spending by the Indian enterprises is based on a survey conducted by the research firm among 1, 523 large enterprises (those with more than 1,000 employees) between June 2012 and September 2012.
Arup Roy, research director, Gartner, says, ?Indian companies? IT priorities in 2013 are the cloud (particularly infrastructure as a service virtualisation, data center consolidation and IT modernisation.?
He adds, ?About 10 per cent of IT spending in 2012 was allocated to external services, 14 per cent was on cloud related initiatives. Similar ratios are expected regarding IT spending by the Indian enterprises in 2013. There is a greater inclination towards private cloud contracts, more than in any other market in 2013.?
As per the survey findings about 30 per cent of the large Indian companies believe that the control of IT budgets is shifting toward business units, including marketing, the chief financial office. Gartner suggests that as budget control shifts occur, service providers must take a multipronged approach and not only target chief information officers.
According to Gartner the biggest IT spending in India was in the communications industry, followed by banks and securities. In India banks are embarking on the next phase of transformation into more competitive, customer-friendly institutions. With this transformation the key business opportunities are likely to come up in the areas of core banking systems and upgrades/integration with other peripheral systems. Near-term opportunities in the banking sector will be in the areas of collections, contact center services, business intelligence, mobility and IT outsourcing.
However, Gartner points out that relatively poor spending in insurance, government departments and other utilities sets India apart from other countries. Nevertheless, these segments are likely to offer strong opportunities for service providers. Some of the largest IT deals are expected to be awarded by the central and the state government. Further, specific business opportunities will emerge from state and central government bodies which are responsible for citizen-facing services and entrusted to ensure efficiency and transparency.
