According to Gartner, the IT spending in Asia Pacific is expected to reach $743 billion in 2013, an increase of 7.9 per cent over 2012.
In the Asia Pacific region, all five major segments of IT spending are expected to grow in 2013. The devices segment (including PCs, tablets, mobile phones and printers) in Asia Pacific is projected to increase to $229.7 billion, a 12.3 percent increase from 2012 spending. Data center systems spending is forecast to increase to $28.6 billion in 2013, a 9.5 percent increase from 2012; software spending and IT services spending will increase to $33.9 billion $91.5 billion in 2013 up by 11.9 per cent and 7.5 per cent, respectively. Garner expects the telecom services market to increase to $359.4 billion, a 4.8 percent increase from 2012.
“As global markets improve in 2013 and resume growth, Asia Pacific remains one of the bright spots of the global IT market, allowing organisations in this region to accelerate competitiveness,” says Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research, Gartner.
He adds, “Organisations in Asia Pacific will be able to innovate and compete using what we call the nexus of forces, or the intersection of cloud, mobile, social and information. New business models will emerge in this region.”
Gartner predicts that by 2014, IT hiring in major Western markets will come predominantly from the companies headquartered in Asia and registering double-digit growth.
“An increasing number of successful Asian companies, particularly from China and India, are enjoying double-digit growth rates and will substantially grow their geographic footprints, making significant investments in major Western markets through 2015. Consequently, these organisations will be responsible for major hiring of IT professionals to support their growth at a time when Western companies will still be coping with the impact of the economic crisis,” explains Sondergaard.
According to Gartner, by 2015, 4.4 million IT jobs globally will be created to support big data. Of these, 960,000 will be in the Asia Pacific region. Every big data-related role in Asia Pacific will create employment for three people outside of IT, so a total of 4 million jobs will be created in Asia Pacific. However, only one third of the IT role will be filled due to lack of skills in big data. Governments and organisations will need to focus on education and skills development to remain competitive.
In other countries like Australia and New Zealand the IT spending is estimated to increase to $75.4 billion and $8.6 billion, respectively.
Sondergaard says that the IT industry is entering a ‘nexus of forces’, which includes a confluence and integration of cloud, social collaboration, mobile and information.
“This is a time of accelerating change, where your current IT architecture will be rendered obsolete. You must lead through this change, selectively destroy low impact systems, and aggressively change your IT cost structure. This is the next age of computing, says Sondergaard.
According to Gartner, the key drivers of IT spending in Asia-Pacific are:
Cloud
The cloud is the carrier for the three other forces: mobile is a personal cloud, social media is only possible via the cloud, and big data is the killer application for the cloud. The cloud will be a permanent fixture and the foundation of IT spending in the region.
“The cloud is not merely about cost-cutting, the end game is not just cheap on-demand services. In fact, 90 per cent of these services are still subscription based, not pay-as-you-go,” says Sondergaard. He further adds, “We are just at the beginning of realising the cost benefits of cloud, but organisations moving to the cloud are also attracted by the new capabilities they do not get today. It is bringing new approaches to designing applications, specifically for the cloud, and providing more resilience by architecturing failure as a design concept. Cloud also teaches us about services and service levels, and the contrast between what the business wants for outcomes versus IT’s old methods of getting there.”
Mobile
In 2016, more than 1.6 billion smart mobile devices will be purchased globally. Two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40 per cent of the workforce will be mobile. The challenge for IT leaders is determining what to do with this new channel to their customers and employees.
Sondergaard points out, “Mobile is about computing at the right time, in the moment. It is the point of entry for all applications, delivering personalised, contextual experiences. This means that marketing gets more time with the customer; employees become more productive; and process flows get dramatically cut.”
In about two year’s time, iPads will be more common in business than Blackberries. According to Sondergaard “Chief information officers are now placing orders for tens of thousands of iPads at a time. Productivity is the driver. Two years from now, 20 per cent of sales organisations will use tablets as the primary mobile platform for their field sales force. As a result, by 2018, 70 per cent of mobile workers will use a tablet or a hybrid device that has tablet-like characteristics.
Gartner forecasts that in 2016, half of all non-PC devices will be purchased by employees. By the end of the decade, half of all devices in business will be purchased by employees.
Social Computing
In the next three years, the dominant consumer social networks will the limits of their growth. However, social computing will become even more important. Companies are establishing social media as a discipline. Gartner predicts that in three years, 10 organisations will each spend more than $1 billion on social media.
“Social computing is moving from being just on the outside of the organisation to being at the core of business operations. It is changing the fundamentals of management: how you establish a sense of purpose and motivate people to act. Social computing will move organisations from hierarchical structures and defined teams to communities that can cross any organisational boundary.”
Big Data
By tapping a continual stream of information from internal and external sources, businesses today have an endless array of new opportunities for: transforming decision-making; discovering new insights; optimising the business; and keeping pace with innovations in the industry.
Big data creates a new layer in the economy which is all about information, turning information, or data, into revenue. This will accelerate growth in the global economy and create jobs.
Sondergaard, suggests, “Big data is about looking ahead, beyond what everybody else sees. You need to understand how to deal with hybrid data, meaning the combination of structured and unstructured data, and how you shine a light on ‘dark data.’ Dark data is the data being collected, but going unused despite its value. Leading organisations of the future will be distinguished by the quality of their predictive algorithms. This is the CIO challenge, and opportunity.”
