Manufacturing, natural resources companies to spend over Rs40,000 crore on IT in 2013

In an attempt to improve productivity and competitiveness, Indian manufacturing and natural resources companies will spend Rs40,800 crore on IT products and services in 2013, -  9.1 per cent increase over 2012 revenue of Rs37,400 crore.

This forecast includes spending by manufacturers and natural resource companies on internal IT (including personnel), hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications, according to Gartner Inc.

The telecommunications category remains the biggest spending category overall in the manufacturing and natural resources industry, and it is forecast to reach Rs13,200 crore in 2013.

Meanwhile, software is achieving the highest growth rate amongst the top level IT spending categories – forecast to exceed 15 per cent in 2013, with especially strong growth forecast for enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, customer relationship management, desktop software, and manufacturing-specific applications.

Gartner anticipates high demand for consulting services as manufacturers plan for these implementations, forecasting growth of over 22 per cent in 2013 alone.

''Despite India's slowing economic growth, manufacturing and natural resources remain large and important sectors in the Indian economy, and they are attracting increased IT spending to improve productivity and competitiveness,'' says Ken Brant, research director for manufacturing at Gartner.

''Indian manufacturers are seeking to use IT to make process improvements and information from across manufacturing operations more transparent and actionable,'' adds Brant.