GlobalData’s 2017 survey of enterprise IT decision makers finds positive sentiment with regards to increases in IT spending. The annual survey, conducted with over 3,200 IT managers and CIOs across 29 geographical markets, reveals that 60% of enterprises are increasing their IT budgets in 2017, while 20% are keeping their budgets unchanged on 2016 levels.

Just 20% of the enterprises interviewed are operating with decreased IT budgets this year in comparison to their levels in 2016. The survey provides encouraging news for IT vendors and services providers targeting enterprise IT departments with both core and advanced technologies.      

In order to grow their business, compete with traditional rivals and take on new OTT threats, service providers around the world have made the introduction of innovative services a core part of their business. Per Global Data’s Innovation Impact service, Q3 2017 saw new, innovative launches relatively well-distributed across all regions.

For all their efforts, however, they are falling short on diverse ways to monetise their new services.

While a given service might look to drive a diverse set of business results, three different monetisation models represented roughly 90% of those seen across Q3 launches: customer retention, customer acquisition, and direct (charging for the service). 

To be sure, these are the easiest to understand and plan for. They are much less complicated (and less uncertain), for example, than ad-funded service models. But if service monetisation models do not move beyond what’s familiar for service providers, the extent to which they are truly innovative will always be limited.

According to GlobalData’s survey of 270 respondents in the financial markets sector, 66% of enterprises are currently using data warehousing/marts, and 71% of respondents are willing to invest in this business intelligence domain in the next two years.

Financial markets institutions are automating their data strategies and deploying data warehouse platforms to cope up with the regulatory reporting requirements and respond to new growth opportunities quickly.

For example, in August 2017, Whitebox Advisors, a hedge fund financial planner, selected Broadridge Financial Solutions to implement an integrated portfolio management and accounting platform with data warehouse solutions. This has enabled the hedge fund provider to streamline and automate workflow across their portfolio of traded instruments.

Soaring demand for customer-specific banking solutions, coupled with technological advancements has increased the customer expectations from banks for providing convenient services and personalized experiences. Retail banks are hence relying on cloud solutions to meet the demands of customers.

GlobalData’s survey of 176 retail banks revealed that 36% of cloud computing budget was allocated to infrastructure as a service (IaaS) in 2016, while it is set to increase marginally in 2017. It is followed by software as a service (SaaS) that garnered a total cloud computing budget of 33% in 2016.

Retail banks are now increasingly deploying SaaS solutions to streamline operations and increase their overall profitability. For instance, in June 2017, Bank of America selected Oracle’s cloud for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and financial applications for both its international general ledger and its broker-dealer systems.