Heed Gartner’s advice and optimize your costs for mobility

In Gartner’s latest projections on IT spending, the overall outlook for 2010 is down on an annual growth basis from last year. Earlier this year, Gartner projected IT spending would jump 4.1 percent this year, but the firm has since downgraded its expectations to 2.9 percent.

Since 2009 was a particularly challenging year with IT spending down 5.9 percent from 2008, analysts had predicted a stronger recovery in the current year. Still, the $2.9 trillion expected to be spent on IT this year is no small number.

Kenneth Brant, research director at Gartner, urged businesses to exercise caution and to prepare for the continued economic uncertainty to impact IT growth overall. Meanwhile, Gartner encouraged software and service providers to target markets where IT-related growth is expected to be particularly strong through at least 2014.

The top five industries that will see the biggest increase in IT spending this year are utilities (4.7 percent), national and international government (4 percent), communications media and services (3.6 percent), healthcare (3.2 percent), and banking and securities (2.8 percent).

Finally, Brant also urged businesses to promote solutions that deliver “cost optimization.” He expects cost management to be a “persistent and overriding value for IT buyers even as markets return to growth.”

We know how important a factor cost is for any enterprise looking to embrace mobility. Defining a comprehensive mobile enterprise strategy is key to any successful mobile deployment on such large scale. Visage Mobile’s Corporate Mobility Policy Template is a great tool that will guide your company through the process.

Smart policies paired alongside the cost management features we provide in our live app MobilityCentral will help your business move from a wired to a wireless world and make sure you don’t go broke in the process.