Bangalore, February 7, 2013 — Indian manufacturers and natural resources companies will spend  Rs408 billion on IT products and services in 2013, an increase of 9.1 percent over 2012 revenue of  Rs 374 billion,  finds a  Gartner study.This includes spending by manufacturers and natural resource companies on internal IT (including personnel), hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications.

Telecommunications remains the biggest spending category and is forecast to reach  Rs 132 billion in 2013. Software is seen to  achieve the highest growth rate amongst the top level IT spending categories – forecast to exceed 15 percent in 2013, with especially strong growth forecast for enterprise resource planning (ERP)/supply chain management (SCM)/customer relationship management (CRM), desktop software, and manufacturing-specific applications. Gartner anticipates very high demand for consulting services as manufacturers plan for these implementations, forecasting growth of over 22 percent 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,” said 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.”