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The Middle East is undoubtedly one of the fastest growing ICT markets worldwide. The IT market in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region is forecasted to grow by nearly 17% in 2008 to reach an approximate value of $51.70 billion. IT hardware will continue to represent the bulk of IT spending in 2008, with a share of almost 69%, while IT Services (just over 20%) and packaged software constitute the remainder of spending in the region. IDC expects overall spending to reach almost $80 billion by the end of 2012.
IDC's CIO Summit 2009 is about the CIO, and for the CIO. The individual conferences examine the evolving role of the CIO within the organization, the relationship with line-of-business and financial decision makers, and ultimately how IT underpins business-critical processes to impact the bottom line.
IDC CIO Summit Provides:
First-hand visions and experiences from recognized thought leaders
CIO trends and peer-to-peer networking opportunities
Major ICT trends and developments over the next three to five years
An insight into technological opportunities in relation to innovation, cost effectiveness, and process efficiency
An understanding of the new CIO role
An update of key business and technology challenges and opportunities
In 2008, CIOs plan to make the heaviest investments in IT infrastructure. Customer service initiatives will be a close second, ahead of security, regulatory compliance, and sales performance. The planned spending demonstrates CIOs' ongoing efforts to add visible value to their companies, not just to maintain a functional back-end system. Since many CIOs are evaluated, in part, on company profitability, they have an incentive to increase sales in addition to improving internal efficiency. This spending echoes their CEOs' business initiatives.
Throughout the Middle East and North Africa, IDC has found that the banking industry and government organizations tend to spend heavily on IT services. Banks do so because they are among the first in most countries to build IT infrastructures, and use IT services to get the greatest benefit out of their infrastructure. They typically invest in a full range of IT services: IT consulting, hardware and software installation, support services, operations management, and training and education. Government organizations also have large IT infrastructures, but they invest in services, in part because they must. Unlike most private companies in the Middle East and North Africa, government organizations typically hire few or no expatriates. Since they have a smaller labor pool to draw from, they must go outside their core IT department for some IT services.
Given the drive to increase internal efficiency, it is not surprising that so many CIOs assess the return on investment (ROI) of their IT spending. Up to 45% of CIOs report that they almost always assess ROI before a purchase, while only 5% almost never do. Once the purchase has been made, however, CIOs are less likely to follow up and see the actual ROI. Only 16% almost always assess ROI after a purchase, and 14%almost never do. While some projects may be essential, such as emergency replacements, this gap between projected and actual ROI means that CIOs are leaving themselves vulnerable. Documenting both projected and actual ROI has many benefits: Catching out aggressive claims by vendors, revealing shortfalls in supporting infrastructure, exposing business processes that can be reengineered, and documenting the benefits that IT provides to the company overall.
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For more information about any of our events, please contact
Ronita Bhattacharjee
Conference Director MEA
IDC MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA
Dubai Internet City
Building No.8
Suites 203
Dubai
United Arab Emirates
PO Box 500615
Phone: +971 4 3912741
Fax: +971 4 3911922
www.idc-cema.com |
Overview