Middle East and Africa enterprise IT spending across all industry markets is forecast to reach 70 billion euros ($93.87 billion) in 2012, a 6.3 per cent increase from 2011 spending of 66 billion euros ($88.51 billion), according to Gartner.

Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner, global head of research, said: “In 2011, the growth rates across the Middle East and Africa region were in double-digit figures. As a consequence, 2012 will be hampered more, and top growth rates will be limited to those countries that didn’t exploit their economies last year.”

“Four forces of technology: cloud, social media, mobile and information, will equally impact IT organisations and technology providers in the Middle East. However, we believe that the market for cloud services, the lack of skills to deal with big data and the explosion of information could limit changes in organisations in the Middle East,” he said.

Sondergaard said building industrialised IT capabilities will have CIOs across the Middle East increasingly turn to outsourcing of infrastructure and application environments. “We believe that there will be substantial opportunities to drive down costs of outsourcing contracts that tend to be the most expensive globally. CIOs will need to build sourcing and vendor management skills to counter ensure better prices.”

The banking and securities industry will be the fastest growing sector, especially in the Mena region, said a statement. This market is largely boosted by the still sustained expansion of the Islamic banking sector due to the recent legislations in Qatar and Oman, as well as the new wind of legalisation from Islamic parties after the Arab Spring.

The transportation and healthcare providers industries will also see a similar growth rate. While the top three fastest-growing industries are broadly the same in the entire region, the position changes slightly with transportation on the top in the African countries, the statement said.

“We see four major business trends in the Middle East and Africa region - the diversification strategies of governments to create sustainable and diversified businesses from an oil-based economy, the expansion strategies of local organisations across the region, the need for more security and the management of the impact of the Arab Spring,” said Vittorio D’Orazio, research director at Gartner.

“To underpin those strategies, hardware and software will play a key role and are predicted to have the fastest growth rates in 2012, as well as in the following years,” he said.

The largest markets in terms of actual euros will remain within the large government (and state-owned enterprises), the banking sector and the large manufacturing & natural resources industries which are also comprehensive of the rich energy sector.

Gartner analysts will discuss critical business, technology and leadership strategies at the 2nd Annual Gartner Middle East CIO Leadership Forum 2012 to be held in Dubai, on February 27 and 28 at the Raffles. – TradeArabia News Service