Inflation, talent shortages and geopolitical disruptions are not expected to slow IT investments, revealed Gartner in its latest report on the global IT Spending in 2022. Global IT spending is projected to total $4.4 trillion in 2022, an increase of 4% from 2021, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc.
“This year is proving to be one of the noisiest years on record for CIOs,” said John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner.
“Geopolitical disruption, inflation, currency fluctuations and supply chain challenges are among the many factors vying for their time and attention, yet contrary to what we saw at the start of 2020, CIOs are accelerating IT investments as they recognize the importance of flexibility and agility in responding to disruption.
“As a result, purchasing and investing preference will be focused in areas including analytics, cloud computing, seamless customer experiences and security.”
Inflation impacts on IT hardware (e.g., mobile devices and PCs) from the past two years are finally dissipating and are starting to spill over into software and services.
Software spending is expected to grow 9.8% to $674.9 billion in 2022 and IT services is forecast to grow 6.8% to reach $1.3 trillion.
Also read: Gartner’s Top Trends Impacting Infrastructure and Operations for 2022
Global IT Spend in 2022 unaffected despite rising cost of talent: Gartner
With the current dearth of IT talent prompting more competitive salaries, technology service providers are increasing their prices, which is helping to increase spending growth in these segments through 2022 and 2023.
The trend toward digital transformation is not a one or two-year trend. Gartner notes it is systemic and long-term.
This growing trend is demonstrated by the increasing global IT Spend in enterprise application software, infrastructure software and managed services in the near and long term, including in 2022.
For example, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) underpins every major consumer-focused online offering and mobile application, accounting for a significant portion of the almost 10% growth in software spending in 2022.
Gartner expects digital business initiatives such as experiential end-consumer experience and optimization of supply chain to push spending on enterprise applications and infrastructure software into double-digit growth in 2023.
Also read: Gartner’s Most Important Cyber Security Trends For 2022
“CIOs anticipate having the financial and organizational ability to invest in key technologies throughout this year and next,” noted Gartner.
Some IT spending was on hold in early 2022 due to the Omicron variant and subsequent waves but is expected to clear in the near-term.
“CIOs who keep their eye focused on key market signals, such as the shift from analog to digital business and buying IT to building it, as well as negotiate with their vendor partners to assume ongoing risks, will fare better in the long-term. At this point, only the most fragile companies will be forced to pivot to a cost cutting approach in 2022 and beyond.”
