Tech Spending Roars Back in 2021

Tech spending is poised to rebound as the economy re-opens in 2021. CIOs and IT buyers expect a 4% increase in 2021 spending and we believe the number will actually be higher-- in the 6-7% range. Drivers are: continued fine-tuning of and investment in digital strategies-- e.g. cloud, security, AI, data, and automation. Application modernization initiatives continue to attract attention. We also expect more support with work from home demand - e.g. laptops. We’re even seeing pent up demand for data center infrastructure. 

The major risk to this scenario remains the pace of reopening. However even if there are speed bumps to the vaccine rollout and herd immunity, we believe tech spending will grow at least 2 points faster than GDP, currently forecast at 4.1 percent.