Cloud to Help IT and Business Services Market Surpass $1 Trillion Mark

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Technology and business services providers are expected to cross some big milestones soon, according to market research firm IDC.

In the first half of 2017, the world’s IT and business services companies generated $475.2 million in sales, a four percent year-over-year increase. And if IDC’s predictions are correct, the seemingly unstoppable cloud computing market will help them end the year on a high note.

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“Steady growth in the services market is largely driven by a continued demand for digital solutions with cloud-related services expected to surpass the $100 billion mark this year,” said Lisa Nagamine, research manager of IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Services Tracker, in a statement.

Businesses are flocking to the cloud for their IT services and application needs, a boon for cloud providers.

Last month, Gartner released a forecast stating that the public cloud market will reach a whopping $411 billion in 2020. Enterprises will account for a big chunk of that haul, nearly $100 billion as they snap up SaaS (software-as-a-service), IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-services) and other cloud-delivered IT services.

IT-focused vendors are generally thriving on providing technology outsourcing, application development and network implementation services, although IDC did observe a dip in IT outsourcing demand earlier this year. System integrators has sales of $62.1 billion in the first half of 2017, according to IDC’s figures.

Business process outsourcing and consulting services are keeping the business services side afloat, with the former raking in $92.9 billion during the first half of the year and the latter growing at the brisk 8.2 percent.

Combined, both the IT and business services categories will generate $1.0 trillion in sales 2018, predicted IDC.

Rebecca Segal, group vice president Worldwide Services at IDC said she expects businesses to “turn to services firms in increasing numbers to augment skills, gain help with strategic initiatives, and bring new kinds of business value while reducing risk and addressing critical security issues inherent in” digital transformation projects and other modernization efforts.

The U.S. is the biggest consumer of services, having generated $216.7 billion in sales in the first half of 2017. All told, $249.2 billion worth of services were sold in the Americas during the time, a 4.6-percent jump compared to the same period in 2016.

Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) came in second with $144.6 billion in revenue, a 3.3-percent gain. Asia-Pacific (APAC) followed with $81.3 billion in revenue and a 3.7-percent increase.

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.