- Global market intelligence firm IDC presented on Wednesday its FutureScape 2021 webinar, with predictions for the IT industry and implications in Latin America;
- According to IDC, the shift to a digital economy will drive $460 billion of IT spending in Latin America from 2020 to 2023, 35% of this amount will be cloud related;
- 70% of companies in Latin America have added permanent remote working to their corporate HR policies.
65% of the global GDP and more than 40% of the Latin American GDP will be digitized by 2022. That’s one of the predictions released by global intelligence firm IDC this Wednesday during a webinar that gathered the consultancy’s findings regarding the technology industry in Latin America.
Although the figure does not mean that all transactions will be conducted from a smartphone, tablet, or via digital services, as explained by IDC, it means that 40% of GDP is either associated with a set of digital services or is associated with a set of products and services that can’t be competitive, unless they are augmented by some kind of digital front end or back end.
“Let’s take the example of groceries, we are not saying that all grocery shopping is going online, but any grocer national or local, that is not offering online buying or curbside delivery is no longer competitive as a business,” adds Jay Gumbiner, research VP at IDC Latin America.
According to IDC’s team, the shift to a digital economy will drive $460 billion of IT spending in Latin America from 2020 to 2023, related to all spending on IT hardware, software, and services. 35% of this amount will be cloud related.
For the research company, the pandemic accelerated the shift to the creation of digital products and services to more online transactions and to the creation of technology related jobs. “Revenues from digital products will reach 1/3 of all revenues in Latin American companies according to an ongoing survey on medium and large companies done in October and November of this year,” he discloses.
IDC’s predictions on the region further estimate that 15 million consumers will have made their first online purchase in 2020, while the e-commerce penetration will grow 30% to represent nearly 60% of all retail sales.
“Investment in technology has been affected [by the pandemic] but is generally more resilient. We have to say more than resilient, IT is now an economic driver. In past recessions IT would slow down as the economy slow down, in 2020 it continues to grow,” said Gumbiner.
The market intelligence firm gathered a few predictions on its IDC FutureScape 2021 webinar, forecasting the next years’ scenario for the global IT industry and implications in Latin America, and what expects it will guide tech companies in the region when it comes to technological infrastructure.
Companies will move to a cloud-centric infrastructure
By the end of 2021, IDC predicts that close to 75% of enterprises in Latin America will put a mechanism in place to shift to cloud-centric infrastructure and applications twice as fast as before the pandemic.
Edge acceleration
According to the market intelligence firm, through 2023, the reactions to a changing workforce and operations practices during the pandemic will be the dominant accelerators for 50% of edge-driven investments and business model changes in most industries in Latin America.
“By 2021, more than 90% of large enterprises in Latin America will invest in converting their processes to make them contactless including product delivery, customer interactions, and post-sale support, leading to more edge-driven infrastructure to keep acceptable latency levels,” the expert highlighted.
90%
of large enterprises in Latin America will invest in converting their processes to make them contactless
Hybrid workforce and workspaces
With the rise of remote work during the pandemic, IDC also predicts that by 2023, 60% of the LA5000 companies commit to providing technical parity to a workforce that is hybrid by design rather than by circumstance, enabling them to work together separately and in real-time. “The result will be a more collaborative, informed, and productive workforce.”
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70%
of companies in Latin America have added permanent remote working to their corporate HR policies
“75% of Latam companies consider the creation of a dynamic work model with technology as an underlying factor, critical for their operation in the next 5 years,” complements the research VP at IDC Latin America.
