IBT Partners has specialised knowledge in the ICT sector and provides financial, business and technical consultancy services.

The ICT industry has specific challenges that need appropriate expertise. Our know-how helps you achieve your international business and trade development goals. We offer you sector-specific knowledge, as well as our contacts and opportunities for networking.

Our services and solutions are tailored to the needs of each of our customers, please see Government and Corporate for more detailed information.

Read more about the ICT sector:

• Background
• Current challenges
• Opportunities

ICT background information

The economic crisis dented the growth rate in ICT, but only momentarily. Demand for ICT bounced back quickly. Thanks to increased broadband accessibility, technological advances and reduced operating costs, ICT products and services are increasingly affordable.

A recent World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) highlights the growing realisation that international cooperation is increasingly needed in ICT. The WSIS outlined clear aims and objectives to give worldwide access to ICT. In the Geneva Plan of Action, objectives to be achieved by 2015 include, amongst others: the establishment of community ICT access points, Internet access for all universities and schools, research centres, public libraries, cultural centres, health centres and local and central government departments¹.

Current challenges in the ICT sector

The ICT sector offers vast opportunities for the creation of economic and social wealth, thanks to its ability to adapt and evolve, and to allow a high level of user personalisation. At the same time, the rapidity of its development outstrips regulations and controls, sometimes posing a threat to privacy and security. Governmental policies are unable to respond accordingly, and fail to cooperate at the international level.

The EU is the biggest investor in Telecom equipment, but the US has the lead in all other ICT subsectors, namely IT components, computer services and software, and IT equipment. In the EU, only 20% of all patents registered are within the ICT sector, whereas in the US it is 50%. Europe recognises the importance of the ICT sector, highlighting it as a key industry in which it needs to advance and increase investment. The EU has made provisions for this in the Lisbon Objective, as well as in its Europe 2020 Strategy. Results are already visible in central Europe, where Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland significantly increased their workforces in ICT, following the “big four” the UK, Germany, France and Italy. Interesting developments can be also seen in the Nordic countries, especially Finland, Sweden, and Estonia which are some of the few EU countries that invest larger proportions of their GDP in ICT than does the US².

Opportunities in the ICT sector

In order to keep pace with developments in the ICT sector, it is important to have access to actual, accurate and complete information and in-depth expertise. We will help you to address all important issues, including trends, key success factors, advancements and innovations, supply and demand development, operational and financial risks, benchmarking, as well as regulations and opportunities for funds and grants.

The wild success of Google's Android operating system for smartphones is a telling example of the speed of innovation and change in the ICT sector. 33.3 million smartphones supported by Android OS were shipped within the final quarter of 2010 in comparison with just 4.7 million in the same period of 2009. This incredible performance knocked Nokia’s Symiban off its leading position.⁴ This example demonstrates the high volatility within the ICT industry which enables businesses to exploit lucrative opportunities leading to rapid and significant returns on investment. Thus it is essential to receive continual updates on the latest trends and technologies that are likely to become of strategic importance.

Whilst incorporating ICT is one of the necessary requirements for all enterprises that do not want to lag behind their competitors; many businesses manage to transform IT into their source of competitive advantage. Gartner's recent in-depth research reveals the strategies that are expected to be of a key importance in the near future, including⁵:

• Tablets

  → By 2013, 80% of businesses will support a workforce using tablets.

• Mobile applications

  → Expansion of mobiles and tablets that have developed into computers in their own right necessitates the need for more applications. By 2014 it is expected that 90% of organisations will support corporate applications on personal devices.
  → Use of applications in the hospitality sector
  → Use of applications in the food sector

• Social media communication and collaboration

  → Development of subcategories including: social networking based on social profiles (Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn); social collaboration (blogs, wikis, or instant messages); social publishing (YouTube or Flickr); social feedback (Flickr, Amazon). User empowerment is increasingly common. By 2015 it is expected that companies will generate 50% of their Web sales through their social presence and mobile applications.
  → Use of social media in the logistics sectors
  → Use of social media in the hospitality sector

• Video

  → Expansion in the use of videos as standard media-type files used by non-media companies.

• Next generation analytics

  → Shift in devices supporting business decision-making from advice based on analysis of backward looking data about past interactions to ones based on simulations and models predicting future outcomes.

• Social analytics

  → Description of a process of measuring, analysing and interpreting results of interactions and associations among people, topics and ideas provided by social software applications. 

• Context aware computing

  → Improvement of the quality of interactions with end user (client, business partner or employee) based on use of information about the end user’s environment, activities, and preferences. 

• Storage class memory

  → Expand in the use of flash memory in consumer devices, entertainment equipment and other embedded IT systems; flash memory is power removal persistent and more resistant to external damage than traditional RAM.

• Ubiquitous computing

  → Third wave of computing, where computers will be invisibly embedded into everyday objects.

• Fabric based infrastructure and computers

  → Fabric-based computing is entering the mainstream of enterprise computing. It is a revolutionary method used for unifying networks in a  central database.

• M-health

  → Read more about mobile health.

• Cloud computing

  → This will enable CIOs to exploit the potential of their IT departments in order to generate new sources of revenue by becoming a service provider to other organisations. Gartner expects that by 2015, 20% of non-IT Global 500 companies will be cloud service providers³.

• Mobile e-commerce

  → Use of smartphones in shopping is increasingly popular. Customers benefit not only from finding a shop location and opening hours quickly and easily, but they can also compare prices among different retailers online, share opinions on products with friends and family, and give feedback through social media networks. Most importantly, the technology is increasingly used for buying products with smartphones. Notably e-bay has register a 134% increase in US sales through mobiles during the 2010 Christmas holiday season in comparison to the previous one.⁷

• Financial services

  → ICT is expected to highly influence the development of financial services sector

1) International Telecommunication Union. 2010. World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2010, Geneva

2) Turlea, G. et al. 2010. The 2010 Report on R&D in ICT in the European Union, European Commission 

3) Gammage, G. et al. 2010. Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users , 2011 and Beyond: IT's Growing Transparency, Gartner

4) Financial Times. 31 Jan 2011. Google's Android overtakes Nokia's Symbian, page 15

5) Gartner Symposium. 2010. Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011. Online at: http://blogs.gartner.com/symposium-live/2010/10/19/gartner-identifies-the-top-10-strategic-technologies-for-2011/

6) Word Economic Forum. 2010. Digital Ecosystem: Scenarios to 2015. Cologny/Geneva

7) Grau, J. 2011. Mobile Ecommerce investments to pay off in 2011. Online at http://www.emarketer.com/blog/index.php/mobile-ecommerce-investments-pay-2011/

Contact us

If you would like to know more about our ICT sector expertise, please contact us at
ict@ibtpartners.com
for additional information.