Worldwide IT spending is projected to grow 3.2 percent to total USD 3.8 trillion in 2019 from expected spending of USD 3.7 trillion in 2018, according to a forecast by Gartner. Enterprise software spending is forecast to experience the highest growth with an 8.3 percent increase in 2019. Software as a service (SaaS) is driving growth in almost all software segments, particularly customer relationship management (CRM), due to increased focus on providing better customer experiences.
 
Cloud software will grow at more than 22 percent in 2018 compared with 6 percent growth for all other forms of software. While core applications such as ERP, CRM and supply chain continue to get the lion share of dollars, security and privacy are of particular interest right now. Eighty-eight percent of recently surveyed global CIOs deployed or plan to deploy cyber-security software and other technology in the next 12 months.
 
In 2018, data centre systems are expected to grow 6 percent, buoyed by a strong server market that saw spending growth of more than 10 percent over 2017, and in 2018 will come in at 5.7 percent growth. However, by 2019 servers will shift back to a declining market and drop 1 percent to 3 percent every year for the next five years. This, in turn, will impact overall data centre systems spending as growth slows to 1.6 percent in 2019.
 
IT services will be a key driver for IT spending in 2019 as the market is forecast to reach USD 1 trillion in 2019, an increase of 4.7 percent from 2018. An expected global slowdown in economic prosperity, paired with internal pressures to cut spending, is driving organisations to optimise enterprise external spend for business services such as consulting.