Gartner Says CIOs Can Use 2017 Hype Cycle for IT in GCC to Re-Evaluate Spending

CIOs in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) can use Gartner, Inc.’s 2017 Hype Cycle for IT in GCC to identify the most compelling emerging technologies as IT budgets are squeezed. The GCC is an alliance of six Middle Eastern countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman.

Cost-optimization and self-sufficiency are key priorities for CIOs in the region where annual IT spending in 2016 declined 2.4 percent, owing to declining oil prices.  

“The volatile oil and gas market has a direct bearing across verticals in GCC, and has resulted in CIOs being tasked with re-evaluating their IT spend and initiating cost reduction measures,” said Santhosh Rao, principal research analyst at Gartner. “Gartner’s 2017 CIO Agenda also indicated that business intelligence (BI)/analytics, mobility and cloud services would be given priority for any new technology investments treated as discretionary spending. This is in-line with the overall intent of the GCC region to rapidly move toward digitization, which in turn is reflected in the progress of associated technologies on the Hype Cycle.”

The Hype Cycle for IT in GCC, 2017 assesses the technology maturity in areas such as digital business, IT infrastructure and security. It also covers specific technologies in the banking, healthcare, and oil and gas verticals. This year’s GCC Hype Cycle (see Figure 1) identifies 29 key technologies at various states of maturity and varying degrees of impact that are most relevant for information technology in GCC and positions them on the Gartner Hype Cycle. This provides a snapshot of technologies that CIOs and senior IT leaders in GCC enterprises should consider as they transition to digital business.