Australian tech spending to hit $100B this year

Spending on technology products and services in Australia will grow 5.7 per cent of A$99.6 billion this year. Not surprisingly, software will be the fastest growing market sector, reaching double digit growth of 11.9 per cent in Australia, Gartner said.

In contrast, worldwide tech spending is projected to reach $3.9 trillion in 2020, an increase of 3.4 per cent from 2019.

John-David Lovelock, research VP at Gartner said that although political uncertainties pushed the global economy closer to recession, it did not occur in 2019 and is still not the most likely scenario for 2020 and beyond.

“With the waning of global uncertainties, businesses are redoubling investments in IT as they anticipate revenue growth but their spending patterns are continually shifting,” he said.

Lovelock said almost all of the market segments with enterprise software are being driven by the adoption of software-as-a-service (SaaS).

“We even expect spending on forms of software that are not cloud to continue to grow, albeit at a slower rate. SaaS is gaining more of the new spending, although licensed-based software will still be purchased and its use expanded through 2023,” he said.

Meanwhile, growth in enterprise tech spending for cloud-based offerings will be faster than growth in traditional (non-cloud) IT offerings through to 2022. Organisations with a high percentage of tech spending dedicated to cloud adoption is indicative of where the next-generation, disruptive business models will emerge.

“Last quarter, we introduced the ‘and’ dilemma where enterprises are challenged with cutting costs and investing for growth simultaneously. Maturing cloud environments is an example of how this dilemma is alleviated. Organisations can expect a greater return on their cloud investment through savings, improved agility and innovation, and better security. This spending trend isn’t going away anytime soon,” he said.