IDC: India Will Witness Pockets Of Growth And Technology Investment In 2014, Gives 10 Predictions For ICT

IDC released a report today that says 2014 will turn out to be a year of growth despite the high inflation and slowing growth rate. There will be spurts of growth throughout the year and one can expect good results from them. The report also suggests that the health of the Indian Economy has become much better as compared to the first half of 2012.

Keeping the trends in mind IDC also gave 10 predictions for the Indian ICT marketplace:
1. Integrated solutions – Solutions (from applications to silicon) will start becoming an integral part of discussions and strategy of all major hardware vendors, initial implementations and case studies will define the value proposition.
2. Automation – The automation of hardware management will continue to drive differentiation between hardware vendors.
3. Mobility - Increasing business process enabling and vertical aligned applications will drive the mobility wave.
4. Cloud - Adoption of cloud services will see a new life and greater momentum in the context of application/feature upgrade and application modernization. The influence of the business managers can be expected both in the selection of the solution and to ensure future alignment to business.
5. Security – with wider collaboration outside the enterprise, secure sharing of information and being prepared for vulnerabilities will gain more attention
6. Smarter channel partners - OEMs and channel partners will get “Smart” to supplement shrinking IT hardware revenue
7. Blurring Lines - Lines between SI’s, VAR’s & ISV’s partner types will get increasingly blurred as these companies try to broaden their value proposition
8. Modernization - As increasing focus on business managers falls on applications (to drive efficiency, and industry specific compliance) there will be strong but selective investments in application modernization.
9. Repeatable Solutions:- Many of the large services vendors that have traditionally focused the very large (1000+ employee) segment will start building repeatable solutions for mid-size companies.
10. Sourcing - Smaller services partners and/or smaller services engagement will drive the mindset of organizational sourcing strategies as many services contract come-up for renewals.