Global ICT advisory firm, International Data Corporation (IDC), has revealed IT spending in Africa is set to bounce back from negative growth in 2009, to reach $22.53 billion in 2010.
This is according to Jyoti Lalchandani, VP and regional MD of IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey. Lalchandani was speaking at an IDC event this week, hosting a panel of senior industry analysts and global ICT experts from Symantec, IBM and GijimaAst.
Noting the return to pre-crisis growth rates in 2010, Lalchandani expects the African IT market to continue to surge in coming years, forecasting a compound annual growth rate in IT expenditure of around 10.6% for the period 2009 to 2013.
The global economic crisis has impacted the role of the region's CIO, he observed. CIOs are now focused on a 'balancing act', which requires them to optimise, grow and comply as CEOs enforce almost conflicting demands to cut costs, optimise existing ICT infrastructure, drive business expansion, and ensure compliance with increasingly complex regulatory requirements.
Looking ahead, Lalchandani sees three key drivers characterising the African ICT landscape in 2010: cost reduction, business alignment, and risk management. This, he notes, will drive investment into areas such as data centre consolidation, virtualisation, cloud computing, outsourcing, business analytics, IT governance, disaster recovery and security.
During a panel discussion of other ICT trends on the continent, a question was posed on whether technology leapfrogging was really happening in Africa.
Technology leapfrogging is the notion that areas which have poorly-developed technology or economic bases can move themselves forward rapidly through the adoption of modern systems without going through intermediary steps.
“Yes, this is happening throughout Africa. The challenge, however, is that leapfrogging is happening faster than the skills can keep up with the technology,” explained Dario Debarbieri, IBM's Software Group marketing manager.
While Africa's markets are demanding the latest technologies, the challenge comes in the implementation, due to the skills gap, noted Lalchandani.
Derbarbieri advised companies to look at building strong partnerships with global vendors, including training, in order to address the skills issue.
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