Spending on big data and analytics to hit $215 billion this year

Global spending on big data and business analytics (BDA) will gain strength over the next five years as the world recovers from COVID-19, and the ball has already begun rolling: spending will reach $215.7 billion this year, an increase of 10.1% over last year.

This is according to new data from IDC, which, in its Worldwide Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide, revealed that the CAGR for global BDA spending over the 2021-2025 forecast period will be 12.8%.

The banking, manufacturing and professional services industries are currently making the largest investments in BDA, IDC says — combined, the sectors account for an entire third of all spending in 2021.

Meanwhile, the process manufacturing, telecommunications, and government industries are also making a splash: these three sectors will spend almost $47 billion in 2021. The telco industry will see the fastest growth in BDA spending.

"As executives seek solutions to enable better, faster decisions, we're seeing relatively healthy BDA spending across all industries," says IDC program vice president for customer insights and analysis Jessica Goepfert.

"Firms in the professional services industry, for instance, are utilising big data and analytics to support their 360-degree customer and client management efforts, as well as advanced project management initiatives.

Meanwhile, Goepfert says, banks are using BDA solutions to improve customer onboarding while simultaneously automating business operations and detecting and preventing fraud.

"Even slower moving industries like construction have started to fuel investments in extended supply chain planning and interconnected and collaborative workspaces.

This year, more than half of all spending will be directed toward services, with IT services taking up over $85 billion of the total and business services making up the remainder.

$82 billion of BDA spending will be on software, and almost half of this will go to three types of applications – end-user analysis tools, relational data warehouses, and nonrelational analytic data stores. Software will also be the fastest-growing segment of BDA spending with a five-year CAGR of 15.1%.

"Unlike many other areas of the IT services market, big data and analytics services continued to grow in 2020 as organisations relied on data insights and intelligent automation solutions to survive the COVID-19 pandemic," says IDC research manager for analytics and intelligent automation services Jennifer Hamel.

"The next phase of digital resiliency will spur increased investment in services to address both lingering and new challenges related to enterprise intelligence initiatives.