Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) said that worldwide IT spending is expected to be flat in the current year, totaling $3.41 trillion. However, the current forecast is better than the last quarter's forecast of negative 0.5 percent growth. The research firm attributed the change in the outlook to mainly currency fluctuations.
Gartner said that while Great Britain has embarked on a process to change, the research firm said that the changes are yet to be defined. However, the company indicated that the "leave" vote would affect IT spending in the U.K. and in Europe quickly. For other changes, it expects longer time to take effect.
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The research organization said that staff may be the biggest issue in the near term. The company added that the long-term uncertainty in work status would make the Britain less attractive to new foreign workers. Therefore, retaining current non-U.K. staff and having less access to qualified new hiring from abroad would weaken IT Departments in that country.
Gartner's research VP, John-David Lovelock, commented, "The current Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast assumes that the U.K. would not exit the European Union. With the U.K.'s exit, there will likely be an erosion in business confidence and price increases which will impact U.K., Western Europe and worldwide IT spending."
He continued, "2016 marked the start of an amazing dichotomy. The pace of change in IT will never again be as slow as it is now, but global IT spending growth is best described as lackluster. 2016 is the year that business focus turns to digital business, the Internet of Things and even algorithmic business. To fund these new initiatives, many businesses are turning to cost optimization efforts centering around the new digital alternatives (for example, SaaS instead of software licenses, voice over LTE [VoLTE] instead of cellular and digital personal assistants instead of people) to save money, simplify operations and speed time to value. It is precisely this new breadth of alternatives to traditional IT that will fundamentally reshape what is bought, who buys it and how much will be spent."
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