News Feature | March 18, 2015

7 IT Industry Trends That Will Impact Your Business

Bernadette Wilson

By Bernadette Wilson

Enterprise Mobility - Technology Hands Open

GE Capital released the Top Industry Trends To Watch in 2015, which includes a list of IT industry trends.

The report states most of the IT industry’s growth — and about 30 percent of spending — is earmarked for cloud, social, mobile and Big Data. The report also lists trends that could impact your IT solutions provider, including these seven:

  1. Although global IT spending is anticipated to grow 3.5 to 4 percent, IT spending in mature economies is predicted to grow at a lower rate, with a growth rate of 2.7 percent in the U.S.
  2. Investment in next-gen technologies is expected to increase 13 percent; however, GE cites International Data Corporation (IDC) that reports spending on legacy platforms and applications will be flat or even decline by the end of the year.
  3. According to the report, “IT vendor business models delivering software and infrastructure functionality via cloud services will significantly outgrow traditional on-site infrastructure/perpetual software licensing models.”
  4. Because of cost and commodity pricing, there will be few new businesses, but perhaps increased consolidation, in the Infrastructure-as-a-Service market.
  5. Application developers will increase, supported by the low cost of next-gen development platforms.
  6. Network security will be a priority and “will receive the least amount of scrutiny within corporate IT budgets.”
  7. Big Data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) will also be targets of investment. GE Capital cites IDC that predicts the global Big Data market will reach $125 billion this year, and the IoT market will increase to $1.7 trillion this year.

The report also states, “Slowly growing global public IT vendors with large cash balances that far exceed reinvestment opportunities will be on the radar of well capitalized and media savvy activists.” GE Capital anticipates activists will push for a return on capital to shareholders via large share buybacks and dividend increases — as well as through mergers, break-ups, and divestitures.