Telecoms and IT convergence is changing local big and mid-sized companies` spending habits, says BMI-TechKnowledge.
The research house has published two end-user reports, which explore IT spend and trends in the big business and mid-market IT landscape.
Senior analyst at BMI-T Astrid Hamilton says the reports were based on the changes taking place in the local IT user landscape, and the increasing convergence between IT and telecoms.
"With the growing need for IT and telecoms solutions to conduct business effectively, the mid-market sector has gone from being unsophisticated and immature to the biggest growth opportunity for vendors," she says.
"Enhancing functionality of current IT infrastructures and optimising existing investments are two of the factors driving changes in the IT spend."
The big business sector survey included companies with turnover of over R100 million per annum and the mid-market sector survey included companies with annual turnover of less than R100 million.
The differences revealed in the report between the two sectors concerned service-oriented architecture (SOA), the empowerment status of suppliers and security threats.
The adoption of SOA was higher in the big business sector, with 13% of respondents implementing SOA in some form, compared to 9% in the mid-market sector. Some 20% of big business respondents are considering implementing SOA, versus 8% in the mid-market sector.
The empowerment status of suppliers is also more important to the big business sector than the mid-market sector, and big businesses feel their own employees are the single biggest security threat compared with viruses for the mid-market sector, adds Hamilton.
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