Indian insurers spending Rs. 140.8bn on IT and services in 2016: Gartner

Enterprise software spending, which includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), and customer relationship management (CRM), is forecast to grow 22 percent in 2016, to a total of 948 million rupees.

Most Indian insurance companies expect to increase their IT budgets in 2016, and are expected to spend 140.8 billion rupees on IT products and services – a 9.6 percent increase over 2015, according to Gartner Inc. This forecast includes spending by insurers on internal IT (including personnel), hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications.

“Our research shows that Indian insurers are prioritizing their technology investments for 2016 into digitalization, and particularly analytics capabilities,” said Derry Finkeldey, research director at Gartner. “They are primarily looking to digital to grow their businesses in the domestic market.”

This is driving continued strong growth in IT services, especially consulting services, and also enterprise software. Spending on IT services is forecast to reach 45.2 billion rupees, which is 32 percent of all insurance IT spending. Enterprise software spending, which includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), and customer relationship management (CRM), is forecast to grow 22 percent in 2016, to a total of 948 million rupees.

Further information on insurance sector IT spending is available in the Gartner report, ‘Forecast: Enterprise IT Spending by Vertical Industry Market, Worldwide, 2013-2019, 2Q15 Update. This vertical industries forecast provides total enterprise IT spending, including internal spending and multiple lines of detail for spending on hardware, software, IT services, and telecommunications for vertical industries and 43 countries within seven geographies.

Business trends are the main focus at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2015, November 2-5 in Goa, India..