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The business technology spending market will grow at 6.9 percent 5-year compound annual compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from $236.6 billion in 2012 to $330.7 billion by 2017, while enterprise IT grows slowly at a 1.9 percent five-year CAGR from $213 billion to 233.5 billion over the same forecast period, according to a report from IT research firm IDC.
The report, “United States Technology Buyer Forecast by Vertical: 2012 to 2017,” examines technology spending by 12 buying segments and how this new technology purchasing behavior differs by 15 vertical industries.
Business-funded technology is expected to reach $275.2 billion in 2014, accounting for 55 percent of total technology spending.
Industry-specific operation is the largest business line, capturing approximately 45 percent of total business funded technology in 2014.
Marketing is the fastest growing functional area, growing at a five-year CAGR of 9.5 percent, reaching nearly $26 billion by 2017.
The marketing function within the communications and media industry will spend the most on marketing in 2014, with the retail vertical growing the fastest over the forecast period—11.2 percent 5 year CAGR, according to the report.
“The connection between technology and business is accelerating at lightning pace as business users adopt what IDC refers to as the ‘four pillars’ — cloud, social, mobile and analytics,” Eileen Smith, program manager, for IDC’s global technology and industry research organization, said in a statement. “Investments in these key areas are driving business funded technology to reach $275.2 billion in the United States in 2014, accounting for 55 percent of total technology spending.”
Enterprise IT spending is growing only at a 1.8 percent five-year CAGR, far below the overall five-year technology CAGR of 4.6 percent. Only health care enterprise IT is growing faster than overall technology spending.
The new forecast quantifies how much money business areas including accounting, finance and billing, customer service, engineering, architecture and research, human resources, industry-specific operations, IT, legal, marketing, other horizontal operations, sales, security and risk and supply chain management are spending on technology, and how this new paradigm differs by industry.
The report also indicated buying power in technology purchases is shifting from chief intelligence officers (CIOs) to chief marketing officers (CMO), chief finance officers (CFOs), vice presidents of sales, and other line executives.
“This transformation has immense implications on the selling, marketing and delivering of technologies,” the report noted. “Developing a specific set of messages for each of the stakeholders in the buying process, including the CIO and CMO, CFO and other lines of business executives is fundamental to tapping into these new buying centers.”