Wallet 2021: Different Dots, Same Picture

What could lighten both the stress meter and wallet of Indian CIOs? The answer is a set of factors that is not hard to guess – cloud, automation, AI and agility

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What is that men hide, and women show? Well, you just need to look where your money is, and you would know. A woman would always carry her purse or handbag in a visible way. A man would have his wallet tucked properly in a pocket. But when it comes to the IT wallet, it is a mystery, no matter what gender or vertical the CIO belongs to. A lot of factors, some totally non-IT-related, can affect the weight and place of this wallet.

The year has begun and guesstimates have started emerging on how heavy and different the IT wallets in India are going to be this time. Let’s see if we have a pattern already.

CLOUD, THE MAGNET FOR IT COPPER – NO SURPRISES HERE

We have all been witness to the speed and pervasiveness with which businesses embraced remote working, digital models and hybrid processes during the ongoing pandemic – hinting on the continued momentum towards spending on cloud and adjacent services/solutions.

The latest analysis by 451 Research points out that the Cloud Computing-as-a-Service (CCaaS) market in India will maintain solid growth, exhibiting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15% from 2019 to 2024. The research report attributes this growth to reasons such as deliberated government support, positive investment climate, thriving ecosystem of technology vendors, and growing interest among the digital enterprise. Interestingly, in 2019, the market for CCaaS in India stood at USD 873 million, growing at a projected rate of 23% YoY in 2020, which is expected to slow down to 11.3% in 2024.