How digital business skill demand is driving IT investment

Strategic investment in business technology is led by CIOs and CTOs that launch new digital transformation initiatives. Those digital growth plans result in the modernization of IT infrastructure. However, an internal IT staff skills shortfall will continue to fuel demand for more savvy and experienced digital business talent. Worldwide revenues for IT Services and Business Services totaled $502 billion in the second half of 2017 (2H17) -- that's an increase of 3.6 percent year-over-year (in constant currency), according to the latest market study by International Data Corporation (IDC). "As customers look to digital transformation initiatives to stay relevant in the new economy, vendors face both opportunities and challenges," said Xiao-Fei Zhang, program director at IDC. "While automation and new cloud delivery models reduce overall price, new digital services will require clients to spend more time and resources to modernize their existing IT environment," For the full year 2017, worldwide services revenues came to just shy of the $1 trillion mark. Year-over-year growth was around 4 percent, which slightly outpaced the worldwide GDP growth rate. The growth in professional services reflects stronger business confidence that's fueled by a brighter economic outlook and a shared sense of urgency for large-scale digital transformation projects. Looking at different services markets, project-oriented revenues continued to outpace outsourcing and support & training, mainly due to organizations freeing up pent-up discretionary spending from earlier years and feeling the need to digitize their organizations via large scale projects.