The Imperative of Government's IT Spending

Many people believe that government should gaze as much as possible on IT spending. Investments in areas related to software, networks and hardware are very profitable and will improve life of citizens. The performance across the board is enhanced in all the sectors. IT, is becoming increasingly prevalent and permeates our daily lives, and even embodies people's basic needs. When it comes to education, one of most fundamental need is already boosted greatly by IT.  Almost all teachers, either college professors or high school tutors, are accustomed to prepare class and do presentation with software.

The government IT spending in India is likely to reach $9.5 billion in 2022, an increase of 12.1 percent from last year, according to a Gartner report. The software industry will continue to be the highest growing segment in India this year, followed by IT services.

What is the reason for this?

Many of the building blocks of Digital India had already been laid out in the last few years. During the pandemic, we had to do everything digitally. We met people digitally, did our work digitally, and ordered products digitally, and so on. What the pandemic did was accelerate existing trends. Digital India has been a spectacular success. For the first time, we have things like the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile). The mobile phone’s success is well known. We have over a billion phones and maybe 600-700 million smartphones. We have the cheapest data rates in the world, allowing people to use unlimited bandwidth on their devices.

India’s industrial automation sector has been revolutionized by integrating digital and physical elements of manufacturing to furnish optimum performance. Further, the focus on attaining zero waste production and a shorter time to reach the market has raised the market’s growth.

The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and the Industrial 4.0 are at the center of the new technological techniques for developing, producing, and managing the entire logistics chain, otherwise known as intelligent factory automation. They dominate the industrial sector trends, with machinery and devices being connected via the internet.

In India, the government is trying to build a facilitative ecosystem for manufacturing and exporting electronics goods like TVs, closed-circuit TVs, and air conditioners with the advantage of the members of the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council.

As the access to government services rev across multiple online channels (i.e., private network applications, the worldwide public web, email, calls, etc.), citizens expect the same level of speed, flexibility, convenience, and personalization as they experience in other aspects of their professional and personal lives. But by rethinking experiences, revamping processes, and rewiring IT across interconnected ecosystems, government authorities can raise the bar on how people interact and transact among them to become a destination of choice.

Leader’s commentaries on IT spending

"Contrary to the worldwide spending, all segments will experience growth in 2022 in India," said Apeksha Kaushik, principal analyst at Gartner. Now, governments are executing innovative activities by harnessing technology to streamline digital services, advancing automation processes, evolving citizen experiences, and building a data fabric.

"The pandemic sped up public-sector adoption of cloud solutions and the XaaS model for revved legacy modernization and new service executions," added Apeksha Kaushik. With the ongoing talent challenges facing organizations, XaaS makes it easier for government organizations to find exemplary talent via XaaS operating models.

The report mentioned that legacy modernization continues to be a priority in government organizations, and growth in the data center systems segment will continue to slow through the forecast period.