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Retailers on Track to Spend Over $120 Billion on IT and Communications Technologies in 2007, According to IHL Consulting GroupFRANKLIN, Tenn. --(Business Wire)-- Retailers are heavily investing in IT and communications technologies worldwide, to the tune of over $120 billion U.S. dollars this year, according to Retail WorldView, a new IT Sizing service offered by IHL Consulting Group. "Retailers individually spend well below other industries, about 1/3rd of the amount per revenue dollar compared to financial services and insurance," said Greg Buzek, president of IHL Consulting Group, a global research and advisory firm that serves retailers and retail technology vendors. "However, what retailers lack in spending percentage of revenue they clearly make up in sheer volume, due to their high revenues. Retail is a huge market for IT that is growing just over 9 percent a year." According to IHL, North America represents about 45 percent ($54 Billion) of the overall total in technology spend in retail, with Europe/Middle East/Africa representing another 28 percent of the market. While the Asia/Pacific market represents only 15 percent of the worldwide IT spend, the region's collective retail IT spend is increasing at a rate of over 20 percent annually and is expected to do so for the next 3 years. Retail Worldview tracks the hardware, software, services, and labor/overhead spend for retailers worldwide by region. Each of these technology areas is broken down by retail vertical (grocery, drug, specialty stores, mass merchants, etc.) for each region. Additionally, the spend is analyzed by 10 line-of-business areas including: business intelligence, store automation, merchandising and supply chain, e-commerce, sales/marketing and infrastructure. Finally, each of these line-of-business categories is reviewed at a deeper level of detail for over 100 solution areas such as data warehouse, point-of-sale, CRM, workforce management, inventory control, and ERP. Retailers can thus benchmark their own IT spend against an industry average, and vendors can track the overall size of the markets in which they compete. Vendors can also review other technology areas that might be of interest for acquisition of new companies or technologies. Retail WorldView is available immediately from IHL, and components can be customized for a company's specific research needs. For more information and a complete list of categories researched, please visit www.ihlservices.com. About IHL Consulting Group IHL Consulting Group is a global research and advisory firm headquartered in Franklin, Tenn., that provides market analysis and business consulting services for retailers and information technology companies that focus on the retail industry. For more information, see www.ihlservices.com, call 615-591-2955 or e-mail [email protected]. |
