2012 Outlook: The Year Ahead in Tech

The ever-quotable baseball great, Yogi Berra, once quipped “the future ain’t what it use to be.” After several years of weak economic fundamentals and market volatility, getting excited about the future is arguably more difficult than it used to be.

Many signs point to modest improvement in 2012, but it likely won’t be drastically different from the previous year. For those with the right product mix and business model, that’s probably not such a bad thing.

Heading into Q1, CompTIA’s IT Industry Business Confidence Index remains essentially flat, reflecting persistent concerns over the pace of the recovery. The forward-looking component of the index projects a gain of 3.8 points (on a 100-point scale), which if realized, puts the index ahead of its rating for much of 2011.

What does this mean for industry growth?

For 2012, CompTIA projects a worldwide IT industry growth rate of 4.5%, with upside potential of 7.6%. The U.S. forecast trails slightly at 4.0% and 6.9%, respectively. The data suggests IT industry executives are most bullish on the IT services and software categories.

Compared to U.S. GDP expectations and growth projections for other industry sectors, the outlook for the IT industry looks quite favorable.

A number of trends will inevitably make their mark on the IT industry and the broader economy in 2012.

At a macro level, disintermediation and automation will touch new areas, further reducing layers of complexity, while improving efficiencies. Many organizations will reap the benefits of this innovation, although some will inevitably lag in adoption, potentially resulting in a more pronounced enterprise digital divide.

The technology outlook for the upcoming year will be one of momentum and continuation. Cloud computing, mobility and social communication and collaboration technologies will become more capable, more business-ready and more disruptive. Big data will get even bigger as pervasive connectivity and “smart” devices become the norm.

On the channel front, the “everything-as-a-service” approach to IT will continue to push firms to explore new business models, product mixes and partner relationships. Business transformations, such as the shift from transactional product/services sales to recurring revenue models, will present lucrative opportunities for some, while challenging others.

These and many more trends are discussed in CompTIA’s IT Industry Outlook 2012 report.