Overall spending on information and communication technology (ICT) in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) is set to grow 2.5% year on year in 2019 to reach $213 billion. That's according to the latest insights presented today by International Data Corporation (IDC) as it hosted 200 of the region's most influential technology vendors, telecommunications operators, and IT service providers at the Address Dubai Marina hotel for its annual ICT industry gathering, 'IDC Directions'.
Running under the theme 'Multiplied Innovation: Scaling a Technology Revolution in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa', the highly anticipated event explored the emerging trends and priorities that will shape ICT investment in 2019 and beyond, with IDC's group vice president and regional managing director for the META region, Jyoti Lalchandani, highlighting the critical role that digital transformation (DX) initiatives will play in driving ICT investment across the region.
"Developing an effective digital transformation platform that can sustain, advance, and scale business operations may be the most important task facing the region's decision makers," said Lalchandani as he opened the day's proceedings. "We expect DX spending across the META region to cross the $25 billion mark in 2019 and that figure is only going to increase over the coming years as more and more organizations experiment with transformative technologies such as robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things in a bid to spur innovation and revolutionize their customer experience."
IDC's senior vice president and chief analyst, Frank Gens, built on this during the event's keynote address as he presented his outlook for the global ICT industry and highlighted the radical changes we can expect to see as organizations strive to broaden the scale of their innovation and accelerate the responsiveness of their operations. "In the next two years, the proportion of digitally determined organizations with a fully integrated enterprise-wide technology architecture will grow from 34% to nearly 90%," he said. "By 2022, 25% of endpoint devices and systems worldwide will be executing AI algorithms, and between 2018 and 2023, more than 500 million new apps will be created, equaling the total that was built during the preceding 40 years."
The event also featured a session hosted by Nenad Pacek, founder and president of MEA Business Group, that explored the region's economic outlook, while a panel of senior IDC country heads dissected and contextualized the technology-led innovation and entrepreneurship that is taking root in a variety of different geographies across the region. This was complemented by a series of individually themed technology tracks that enabled attendees to further tailor the agenda to meet their specific areas of interest.
Bringing the event to a close, IDC's associate vice president for research in the META region, hosted an executive panel session featuring insights from Abdulaziz Alfalahi, CEO of corporate technology support services at Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), and Khaled Khamis Al Mansori, CISO of Abu Dhabi's Department of Energy. Together, they examined the emerging priorities that are shaping the CxO growth agenda of tomorrow, with a particular focus on the challenges end-user organizations will encounter as they strive to strike an effective balance between traditional systems and next-generation technologies.