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World's largest companies spend $895 billion on tech in 2014, says survey

08 Apr 2015, 5:15 pm

The ten largest companies in the world spent US$895 billion on technology last year, with nine out of the ten increasing their IT budgets from 2013 to 2014, according to market intelligence company International Data Corporation (IDC).

Walmart was the largest IT spender worldwide, followed by bank of America, Citigroup, AT&T and JPMorgan Chase, IDC said.

On average, the ten companies allocated about one third of their technology spending to salaries and benefits for internal IT and telecommunications staff.

The report, 'The Big Guns: IDC's Worldwide Top Ten IT Spenders', aims to give IT vendors a better understanding of "the business imperatives and objectives driving investments in these large global companies", IDC said in a statement.

"To do business with these marquee firms is a stamp of credibility and an instant boost to market awareness," IDC said.

The companies have one characteristic in common when buying technology, IDC said: an expectation of high levels of service. Any conversation between a vendor and a client must be "process and outcome focused", the research company said.

"When it comes to IT innovation, the world's largest companies are often criticised as being risk averse, sluggish and siloed," said Jessica Goepfert, program director of IDC's global technology and industry research organisation. "However there is no denying that the IT budgets of larger companies are, well, larger. In addition, when acknowledged and appreciated, marquee organisations can be loyal, serve as references for industry peers, and also refer business to their major vendors."

IDC put its report together based on data from its "Worldwide Data Wallet", a quantitative research programme that analyses the IT budgets and spending of over 2,600 organisations.