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Gartner Says Economic Uncertainty and Hypercompetition of IT Services Could Accelerate Rise of Low-Cost IT

10 – Economic fluctuations and business uncertainty, accelerated service globalisation, and increasing competition of IT services are major factors that could force businesses to move further toward lowcost IT, according to Gartner, Inc.
Gartner defines lowcost IT as the delivery of managed IT services (infrastructure, application, business process services) designed and implemented to minimise IT price – peruser/unit permonth (PUPM) – while maximising the number of client organisations and users that adopt the services.
“The price of IT will continue to drive decision making,” said Claudio Da Rold, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “As credit markets in the US and Europe remain challenging, enduser organisations are reducing costs by sourcing IT services from emerging countries and lower cost providers. Cost cutting, restructuring and the move toward offshore outsourcing continue to increase while growth in emerging countries accelerates, widening the gap between highgrowth areas* and stagnant economies**, and low and highcost IT providers. This trend could drive a prolonged reduction in the unit cost of IT services, significantly affecting the IT services market by 2013.”
The industrialisation of IT services*** is also enabling a greater orientation toward outcomebased and payperuse services. Early offerings like infrastructure utilities or cloud email show that providers can deliver onetomany services at price points that are one third of inhouse/traditional costs, due to the right combination of industrialised onetomany services, offshore outsourcing and technologies such as virtualisation and automation.
Gartner analysts said that based on the proliferation of advertising -IT as a service- as a pricing model, business buyers would force traditional providers to switch to PUPM pricing models by 2012.
“If the scenario of lowcost IT accelerates in the next few years, we foresee a growing number of delivery models that could cut the cost of IT by a third or more. This could lead to the emergence of viable lowcost IT providers,” said Frank Ridder, research vice president at Gartner.
In such a scenario, the IT services market could sustain a yearonyear reduction of 10 per cent to 25 per cent in the average market unit price PUPM for three to five years. A yearly reduction of 10 per cent to 25 per cent in IT services costs, affecting 30 per cent of the market, could cause the overall, average market price to decline by 5 per cent to 10 per cent yearly. This worst case scenario reduction would equal the revenue of two to four of the largest IT service providers. “This reduction is possible because, in 2009, we saw the IT services market shrink 4 per cent, with a market loss of $42 billion, with outsourcing prices plummeting,” Mr Ridder said. “Such extensive reductions in price and market size would stall growth in the overall IT services market by 2013.”
“Organisations must invest in scenario planning and risk management,” Mr Da Rold said. “About two or three times a year – depending on dynamics in their business environment – they need to assess their multisourcing environment against risks, including changing service pricing, regulatory changes and providers- viability. They also need to consider leveraging new IT services options depending on their compatibility with their corporate risk profile, and add business value through risk mitigation and business continuity planning.”
Additional information is available in the Gartner report “Uncertainty and Low Prices Could Stall the Growth of the IT Services Industry Market by 2013.” The report is available on Gartner-s website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1419615.
More detailed analysis on outsourcing is available in Gartner-s Future of Outsourcing and IT Services Special Report at http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/future-of-outsourcing-it-services/report/index.jsp. The Special Report provides links to research notes that cover various aspects of outsourcing and IT services. This report provides insight and actionable advice for IT services buyers, providers and investors to achieve more successful future outcomes.
Additional information on the future of outsourcing will be discussed at the Gartner Outsourcing and Vendor Management Summit 2010 taking place 14-16 September in Orlando, and the Gartner Outsourcing & IT Services Summit 2010 held in London, 20-21 September. This is the only event that comprehensive view of the entire outsourcing market – infrastructure, application and business process outsourcing, global delivery and the use of offshore providers, as well as issues and trends about new delivery models, such as SaaS.
For the US Summit, additional information is available at http://www.gartner.com/technology/summits/na/outsourcing/index.jsp. Members of the media can register for the event by contacting Christy Pettey at christy.pettey@gartner.com.
For the EMEA Summit, complete event details are available at www.europe.gartner.com/outsourcing. Members of the media can register for the Summit by contacting Laurence Goasduff at laurence.goasduff@gartner.com.
* Highgrowth areas include Asia/Pacific and Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries).
** Stagnant economies include Europe, Japan and North America.
*** The term “industrialised IT services” refers to the standardisation of IT services through predesigned and preconfigured solutions that are highly automated and repeatable, scalable and reliable, and meet the needs of many organisations.

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world-s leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technologyrelated insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in hightech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the valuable partner to 60,000 clients in 10,800 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 4,300 associates, including 1,200 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 80 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.