CompTIA: UK tops charts as most 'optimistic' IT market
Global trade body survey questioned more than 600 IT company execs across the UK, US and Canada
The UK IT market is leading the way when it comes to optimism in future growth, industry body CompTIA has claimed.
The non-profit organisation's latest IT Industry Outlook 2016 report questioned 673 IT company execs in the UK, Canada and US (103 took part from the UK) to see how they felt the year would pan out in terms of growth and demand.
According to the results, the UK is the most optimistic market, forecasting growth of 4.9 per cent on average, with some ambitious answers predicting as much as seven per cent growth, driven by demand for the "staple" categories of hardware, software, services and telecoms, and supplemented with new revenue streams from emerging categories.
Tim Herbert, senior vice president, research and market intelligence at CompTIA, said: "Businesses of all sizes increasingly recognise the need to remake their workflows and customer engagement practices with an eye towards digital transformation. If investments in these technologies accelerate, and the economy holds steady, growth could lean towards the upside of the forecast."
CompTIA also identified 12 trends for 2016 that it claims will make their mark on the IT industry, channel, general workforce and broader economy. This include macro trends such as moving beyond the user interface, tech policy becoming part of US presidential election issues, digital business encompassing more than just the IT department, and organisations striving to develop more tech talent in-house.
Technology trends identified included cloud being the "new electricity", companies going on the offensive with security, the analytics market heating up again, and the software layer getting more attention.
Finally for the channel, CompTIA predicted vendor partner programmes will strive to reach "escape velocity", increased confusion over who actually is a vendor, skipping the datacentre buildout, and getting closer to the customer.
Herbert added: "Cloud computing, mobility, social, workforce automation, big data, the Internet of Things and other disrupters will continue to expand their reach in 2016. Many organisations will move beyond the experimental, early-adopter stage into broader, more varied uses of these technologies as they seek to capture the benefits of becoming a digital business."
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