IDC Foresees Growth For APEJ IT Services Market At 9.1% In 2012

The overall IT services market in the Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) region is expected to grow by 9.1 percent in 2012, according to the latest IDC’s Asia/Pacific Semiannual IT Services Tracker Report.

“2011 was a tumultuous year for some countries in the region. Flooding in Australia at the start of the year and then later in Thailand, economic inflation in Vietnam, political unrest in ASEAN and a less than expected growth in India were the backdrop of a year that also experienced growth in the region. This year also marked mega projects such as the national ID project in India and Indonesia, as well as the National Broadband Network (NBN) development in Australia, lifting the spend in project-oriented services in the region. The outlook for 2012 has been tampered with concerns over sovereign debt issues from Europe, resulting in the potential impact on the flow-on effect that would have in Asia. In spite of these, economic forecasts for 2012 remain at the same levels of growth as seen in 2011, giving us indication that IT consumption will continue at previous rates,” comments Linus Lai, Associate Director, IDC’s Asia/Pacific Services Research Group.

The top four things that have been on our radar for 2012 include:

There will be some material impact on China’s IT services forecast for 2012 coming from the new 5-year plan for China with seven strategic emerging industries marked for development over the next five years. Historically, spending lifted in the last 3 years of the 5-year plan. 2012 is the second year of the plan, meaning it will have lesser spend component than the previous years. Therefore, the forecast for China’s IT services forecast for 2012 is lowered to 12.8 percent year-on-year (YoY) in 2012, compared to the growth of 14.9 percent expected in 2011. The first time it has gone below the previous year. India is also tipped to be revised lower as the economic growth expectations have faltered.

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The overall impact of cloud computing, as a viable delivery of IT resources, from software to IT infrastructure, has been far reaching. Some examples include how Singapore is aiming to take the lead in the region to address data sovereignty issues, how enterprises like banks are leveraging cloud to lift and shift some of their workloads away from traditional outsourcing constructs into newer service delivery models. IDC expects that 2012 will see this shift from asset-class based pricing to a service-based delivery with lesser reliance on intensive human resource and more automation, judging by the launch of several new data center projects that have been in planning for some time from both the enterprise and service provider segment.

The boom in information platforms and around big data will see a renaissance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) type projects that mark a cycle of investment in business platforms every decade. IDC believes that 2012 will be the year that kicks off this boom due to impressive new capabilities and technology investments from the vendor community in the previous 12 months. The potential for services surrounding the information layer is fraught with challenges and opportunities for service providers with deep vertical industry knowledge and capability to deliver business driven outcomes.

Enterprise mobility and redefining the next generation workplace will create new constructs for services- and cloud-oriented delivery models and drive the demand for network and communications services to new heights. Investments in social media, location based services, mobility management platforms and security services will garner much interest from leading enterprises seeking to enable and motivate a younger workforce in Asia for competitive advantage.

“2012 will be an exciting year and we will see the Asia market continue with the growth momentum we had seen in 2011. As Asian enterprises embark more aggressively on expansionary strategies, IDC expects Asia to take a leading role in next generation IT constructs,” Linus concludes.

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