Good news! ESG and other analyst firms are forecasting greater IT spending in 2010. Bad news: spending will be uneven across industries with varying degrees of increases and decreases.
Given this, technology vendors would be best served by bolstering their vertical marketing programs, skills, and partners–but which industries should be highlighted?
ESG just published its annual Vertical Industry Opportunity Scorecard (VOIS). Through a combination of ESG’s 2010 Spending Survey data and new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ESG Research eggheads calculate VOIS based upon things like labor statistics, year-over-year IT budget increases, and the number of very large organizations as a percentage of the total vertical market.
Through this analysis, ESG believes that the health care, U.S. Federal government, and financial services industries represent the best opportunities for tech vendors in 2010. Here’s a few tidbits behind this logic:
Health care: Over 300,000 new jobs created in the past 12 months. New legislation like HITECH and HITRUST will continue to drive new IT spending. ESG Research indicates that 67% of health care organizations will increase IT spending in 2010.
U.S. Federal Government: Aside from the fact that the U.S. Federal Government spends between $70 to $80 billion already, the Obama administration is pushing a new IT agenda highlighting Government 2.0, data sharing, and cloud computing. Furthermore, about 10% of Federal IT spending goes toward security technologies and services. This trend will continue, driven by FISMA 2.0, the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI, started under the Bush Administration), cyber supply chain assurance, and new initiatives aimed at Critical Infrastructure Protection. One other point worth noting: more than one-third of Federal IT professionals indicate that their organizations are planning a large-scale refresh their laptops and desktops in 2010. Good news for Dell, HP, Microsoft, and the endpoint security crowd.
Financial services: IT spending outlook and positive job growth in the last 90 days vaulted the financial services sector — a high IT spending industry historically — to the #3 spot on the ESG VOIS. Year-over-year IT budget growth was higher in financial services than any other industry. Lots of focus here on data analysis and management.
Other industries showing positive year-over-year signs include retail and business services while state/local government and transportation and logistics remain in cost cutting mode.
Based upon the ESG VOIS, tech vendors with strong vertical practices like IBM, HP, Dell, EMC, and those in the consulting crowd are sitting pretty. Strong government players like Citrix, Juniper, McAfee, and Symantec are also in good shape. Vendors that still view the world as one big horizontal market are in for a rude awakening — even if overall spending is up.
Read more of Jon’s blog entries at Insecure About Security.
Share
