IT spending in EMEA is forecast to total $1.3 trillion in 2022, an increase of 4.7 per cent from 2021, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. The 2022 growth rate will be slower than in 2021 whereas the EMEA IT spending is expected to grow by 6.3 per cent.
The biggest change moving forward will be how IT is financed, not necessarily how much it is financed.
“IT is transitioning from supporting the business to being the business — which means spending on technology shifts from a cost of operations (selling, general and administrative [SGA]) to a cost of revenue (COR), or possibly cost of goods sold (COGS). CIOs have a balancing act to perform, saving cash and expanding revenue,” said John Lovelock, Distinguished Research Vice President, Gartner.
Cloud spending to represent 12.5 per cent of Total Enterprise IT spending in 2022, the research firm said.
Increase in enterprise software spending
In EMEA, enterprise software spending is estimated to have the highest growth in 2022, driven by the rise in cloud spending (see Table 1). “Since the start of the pandemic, cloud delivery has demonstrated elasticity and flexibility. It scaled up when needed and scaled-down when required,” said Lovelock. “CIOs will increasingly use cloud alternatives to secure the quickest time to demonstrate the value of their IT investments.”
Gartner analysts estimate that enterprise cloud spending will represent 12.5 per cent of total enterprise IT spending in 2022. Infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and desktop as a service (DaaS) is expected to be the two segments where EMEA organisations will increase their spending the most in 2022, achieving 32.3 per cent and 31.1 per cent growth, respectively.
“The rise of enterprise application software, infrastructure software and managed services and cloud infrastructure services demonstrates that digital business is not just a one- or two-year trend – it is systemic and long-term,” said Lovelock.
Gartner further added that after double-digit growth in device spending in 2021, spending is expected to slow in 2022, with the segment growing 0.7 per cent year over year. Employee’s device stack of PCs, tablets, laptops and mobile phones continue to be optimal for hybrid work, enabling multilocation and flexible employee business productivity.
