The government is not the only one making controversial cuts
IT directors of large public and private companies are expecting spending for their sector to be cut this year, with the least attention given to development of solutions for attracting new customers, the biggest Croatian system integrator Combis announced, reports Poslovni.hr on March 12, 2016.
Presenting the results of the first research about the local IT managers’ expectations for 2016, the company stated that 42 percent of them believe their organizations will focus on reducing their budgets for IT. Ivan Juras, an analyst with IDC Adriatics said the reason for such decision was politics. With the share of over 40 percent, the government is the largest single buyer of IT products and services on the Croatian market.
“It took a long time for the government to be formed, there are no large public projects, and many do not believe that we can withdraw enough money from the EU funds, while the IT spending in last year, despite the economic growth, has not yet reached the levels from 2008, before the economic crisis started”, Juras explained. This is the situation in the public sector, he said, where the IT budget cuts are frequent. He emphasized that the situation in the private sector was somewhat different, as private companies are aware that in order to implement the digital transformation they would have to invest. “Therefore, in private sector you will not see IT spending cuts”, said Juras.
Key IT trends in the region during 2016 will be mobility, big data and security, said more than 40 percent of IT directors in the region. A significant focus will be put on private cloud solutions, Internet of Things, vertical cloud, M2M integration, public cloud, assets management and corporate social networks. “Research shows that the private cloud has become a necessity, while the public cloud in the business environment has not”, Juras said.
In his words, all these results show that IT has not yet managed to impose itself as a strategic sector for business growth.
