The company said in a statement that the outlook for India had been discussed at its IT Symposium/Xpo India, which is taking place online until Wednesday.
“The COVID-19 pandemic stalled many digital transformation projects for Indian enterprises, mainly because of the market uncertainties and reduced cash flows,” said Arup Roy, research vice-president at Gartner.
“Organisations that were digitally sound in a pre-pandemic world could contain the impact on their business. The pandemic situation was a wake-up call for many organisations to re-look and revive their IT strategies and increase their spending on IT in 2021.”
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The reason for IT spending to increase again in 2021 was, according to Gartner, because CIOs would again start considering IT as not merely an enabler of growth, but as part of a strategy that was necessary for survival. The enterprise software segment is expected to grow the most, 13.6%, while data centre systems spend is expected to grow 8.3%.
“The ‘Digital India’ [government campaign] mission will turn [over] a new leaf in 2021 as enterprises across all sectors start spending more on IT," said Roy.
"The pandemic provided an opportunity for Indian CIOs to test long-pending projects such as remote working, which delivered on-promise for many enterprises and helped them stay afloat in the most testing times.
“The success of these digital innovations has brought back the focus on investments in IT.”
The Gartner analysis added: "In 2021, the focus of IT spending will be in becoming a true digital business. CIOs in India will direct their IT spending budgets towards accelerating digitisation efforts.
"Spending is expected to increase on technologies including advanced analytical solutions, access management, encryption software, desktop as a service, cloud, and hyperautomation enabling systems.
"IT solutions such as robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and digital commerce will also experience an increase in spending."
