Research firm IDC predicts that the Asia Pacific IT services market will grow at 14 per cent from 2002 to 2007, and will be driven primarily by spending in the banking, communications & media, and government sectors.
“The IT Services spending by the banking, communications & media, and government industries is primarily in the system-integration services and outsourcing services,” said Venu Reddy, Program Manager, Services Group, IDC Asia Pacific. “Both these services help companies improve operational efficiency and cut costs, thus enabling them to effectively compete against larger multinational companies.”
A recent end-user study done by IDC also showed that the banking, and communications & media industries spend a higher proportion (relative to companies in other industries) of their IT budgets on core services like security, storage, and enterprise resource management (ERM).
These services demanded by companies are reflective of the need to pay additional attention to customer service qualities like trust, speed and efficiency, said IDC in a press release. In addition to this, companies are using technology to understand customer behaviour to help design/build products that will better serve their customers, the report added.
“Companies in both banking and communications & media are very people-intensive, and need to give great emphasis on customer care. In addition, both these industries have highly commoditized products/services, which make up large portions of their portfolios. This has forced these companies to look at IT services and IT spending in general as means to improve operational efficiency and provide better services,” said Reddy.