By Alex Scroxton
18 September 2008
Analysts at Datamonitor have revealed that although the
majority of enterprises are set to trim their IT budgets in the next 12 months,
the healthcare sector is emerging as an exception, with significant increases
in budgets expected.
Technology analyst Daniel Okubo said: “It is important to
realise how vertical markets are performing because an analysis at country
level can be misleading.
“Simply because some IT departments in a given country are
planning budget decreases it is incorrect to assume that all industries within
that country are suffering. Vendors that understand the nuances in domestic
economies will be best positioned to exploit growth opportunities,” Okubo
continued.
Datamonitor claimed that 57% of respondents from the
healthcare industry said they planned to grow their expenditure. The trend was
particularly pronounced in developed countries such as the UK, where the
baby-boom generation is beginning to put significant strain on the NHS.
Speaking to MicroScope earlier this year, Terry Espiner, Cisco
regional sales manager and head of its UK health business, said that the health
market was a vertical that could be rewarding for resellers that made the
effort to invest in the relationships and solutions required in that market
The ‘Technology Trends: Analyzing Global Enterprise IT
Budgets 2008’ report also revealed that despite the popular perception of
declining tech budgets being down to the current economic climate, the problem
has in fact been building for some time.
Okubo said the downturn was masking the problem to a certain
extent, as for the fourth consecutive year the number of firms planning to ‘significantly
increase’ their IT spending had fallen, suggesting deeper concerns in the
market.
