The South African IT services market is expected to reach R53.3 billion by 2015, according to BMI TechKnowledge's (BMI-T's) South African IT Services Market Sizing Forecast research.
This indicates considerable opportunity for IT players in their respective specialist fields, be it vendor, service provider or integrator, says Andrew Hutchinson, expert for intelligent networks at T-Systems.
However, he believes it is the outsourcing market in particular that has enjoyed significant support over the last three years and will continue to provide a lucrative playing field in the coming two years.
"Considering the above figures, SA's outsourcing market continues to grow due to its evolutionary nature, which in turn allows it to meet the varying demands of companies, despite the economic pressures."
The managed services and hosting segment enjoys strong adoption, explains Hutchinson. "This also gives the market the flexibility of outsourcing different services that are tailored to meet company requirements," he adds.
The mantra remains the same, however, he says. With an outsource partner, businesses benefit from the use of specialist systems and insight that offers the latest in technology advancements and can ultimately impact the way they run their daily operations.
"Full outsourcing services take this one step further, whereby outsourcers take ownership of, and responsibility for, managing all or very large parts of the customer's information infrastructure and operations according to a service level agreement (SLA)."
For Hutchinson, it is not only the outsourcing market that is evolving on its own - external technology influences are also dictating the way it is developed and implemented.
"Take unified communications and collaboration (UCC), for example. The convergence of IT and telecoms, mobile workforce support and the constant need for broad network connectivity are playing a significant role in the adoption of wireless and mobile technologies," he adds.
This results in continuing developments in the UCC space, and changes in traditional IT infrastructure and network design. "It makes complete sense to partner with a UCC outsource provider who can take the guesswork out of unifying myriad connectivity and communication options, such as videoconferencing, messaging, telephony and VOIP."
Going forward, outsourcing will address the complexity of IT environments, which show no signs of abating or simplifying, he says. While many businesses do have IT departments to support their processes, they don't always have the skilled resources to handle the increasingly complex IT infrastructure.
According to Hutchinson, outsource service providers have a major role to play here. "Outsourcing will no doubt play a critical role in this, and, importantly, in the manner in which IT services are provided in SA today," he concludes.
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