There no getting away from the fact that today is one of the most challenging economic times in modern history. Hanging in the balance, of course, is the amount of stimulus that might be injected into the economy as the number of COVID-19 cases continues to rise. It doesn’t seem likely the next spending bill will be finalized and enacted anytime soon.
Against that doom and gloom there have been two bright spots for managed service providers (MSPs) since the start of the pandemic. With more employees working from home the number of organizations that need to rely on MSPs to manage IT services has steadily increased. That, of course, has to be balanced against the number of organizations that either no longer exist or have downsized their operations in the wake of the economic downturn brought on by the pandemic.
The second bright spot has been the acceleration of digital business transformation initiatives that is driving increased deployments of applications in the cloud. Vendor executives have all taken note of the fact that three years of digital business transformation has occurred in the last six months. The good news from an MSP perspective is a new report from IDC forecasting that the level of investment despite the current state of the economy is only going to accelerate. The market research firm is projecting digital transformation (DX) investments will grow at a 15.5 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to reach $6.8 trillion by 2023.
Optimism for future spending
It’s difficult to say precisely how all that spending will be allocated, but the chances a fair amount of it will be directed toward MSPs managing applications in the cloud are fairly high. The best part is these types of project tend to have a multiplier effect. Once an organization digitizes one process, it’s usually not too long before they start digitizing as much of the business as possible. IDC forecasts that 75 percent of organizations will have comprehensive digital transformation (DX) implementation roadmaps in place of by 2023, up from 27 percent today.
Other predictions made by IDC include 60 percent of enterprises will invest heavily in digitizing the employee experience in 2021, with at least 30 percent of organizations accelerating innovation to support business and operating model reinvention.
IDC by 2022 predicts 70 percent of all organizations will have accelerated use of digital technologies, transforming existing business processes to drive customer engagement, employee productivity, and business resiliency.
By 2023, IDC expects 60 percent of G2000 companies will build their own business innovation platform drive innovation and growth.
Data is, of course, at the heart of any digital business process so any MSP with experience managing data should be well positioned. The challenge and the opportunity MSPs now face is making sure the individuals driving digital business transformation initiatives appreciate those capabilities.
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