Worldwide Midmarket IT spending is forecast to reach USD993 billion in 2022

Techaisle's latest survey research forecasts worldwide midmarket (100-5000 employees) IT spend (excluding telecom services) will reach US$993 billion in 2022. Cloud-managed services are an integral component of IT services and are seeing accelerated spending. Overall IT services will grow by 7.2% from 2021. Midmarket firms are increasing IT spending for cloud optimization, application modernization and migration, and IT modernization. In addition, there is an increased demand for container deployment, microservices, open-source, API management, hybrid cloud workload management, and security and compliance management.

Increasing profitability, driving innovation, and improving the supply chain are the top three business challenges being addressed by midmarket firms. Within 85% of firms, IT is seen as a source of innovation, and 79% expect IT to deliver faster business outcomes. Over 20% of midmarket firms have internal teams dedicated to “finding ‘what’s next?’ technology-driven innovations,” and 40% “have IT budgets specifically for technology-driven innovation;” 11% report that they have embedded IT professionals within business units, charged with finding innovative technology solutions to achieve business objectives.

The scope of technology – the areas and ways that IT is deployed – has snowballed in the last two years. Midmarket firms are expanding the reach of their systems of record’, enhancing ‘systems of engagement,’ and deploying ‘systems of insight’ (data-centric solutions providing analytics support to executives, front-line workers, and line management).

Ongoing tech innovation combined with centralization of computing resources, process automation, and the need for rapid “scale-up” and “scale-in” of computing output and productive capacity, managed via software-based monitoring systems, is driving investments into the data center solutions, which will grow by 3.5% in 2022 from 2021.

The pace of technology change is accelerating. The move from methodical requirements-based waterfall systems development to agile processes that connect users and developers in rapid, iterative sprints is gaining traction. The pandemic demanded an immediate transition to digital alternatives. However, midmarket firms lack developer skill sets and turning to hyperscalers and cloud business application providers for cloud deployment. As a result, cloud spending within the midmarket will grow by 22%. SaaS adoption will see the highest growth rate at 27%.

The cloud has lowered the barriers to adopting new systems, giving businesses access to applications and infrastructure resources that would have been well beyond their means five years ago. However, cloud, and hybrid IT, have posed other challenges: difficulties in integrating systems with business processes and in integrating data across applications; difficulty in securing systems that are based in multiple locations and managed by various organizations, each with its own set of operational rules; difficulty in applying appropriate levels of security and governance to an ever-expanding pool of data that moves at accelerating pace through an ever-more-complex constellation of systems, users and locations. Despite these challenges, data suggests enormous scope for cloud growth.

In 2025, 43% of midmarket IT spending will be cloud.