Information technology industry, which is spending sleepless nights following bleak forecasts for North America and Europe, has a reason to smile. Indian enterprise IT spending across all industries is going to grow by 10.3 per cent to over $39 billion in 2012 as against $36 billion last year.
FDI in retail
Consumption by Government and foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail are going to be the biggest drivers for this growth, according to Gartner, Inc, that has just come with India-specific findings.
“The retail industry is expected to achieve the strongest growth in percentage terms in 2012, where IT spending is forecast to grow 11.8 per cent. Recent decisions to allow 100 per cent FDI in single brand retail, and up to 51 per cent in multi brand retail, are expected to provide the sector with a significant boost in terms of IT usage and adoption,” Mr Derry Finkeldey, principal research analyst at Gartner, said. Businesses are looking to IT to help support the challenges of rapid growth for customer support, supply chain management, optimising business processes or helping to drive innovation in the business. “These demands are being placed while the IT infrastructure within many enterprises may not be entirely in place. IT is also in transition from being viewed as a back-office support function to a frontline .business-focused function,” he said