By 2024, 80% of technology products and services will be built by those who are not technology professionals, according to Gartner.
This trend is driven by a new category of buyers outside of the traditional IT enterprise who are occupying a larger share of the overall IT market. Today, total business-led IT spend averages up to 36% of the total formal IT budget.
“Digital business is treated as a team sport by CEOs and no longer the sole domain of the IT department,” said Rajesh Kandaswamy, distinguished research vice president at Gartner.
“Growth in digital data, low-code development tools and artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted development are among the many factors that enable the democratization of technology development beyond IT professionals.”
Technology encroachment into all areas of business and among consumers creates demand for products and services outside of IT departments. These buyers’ needs do not always fit neatly into offerings from traditional providers.
This has been compounded by the COVID-19 crisis, which has only expanded the amount and type of use cases technology is needed to fulfill. In 2023, Gartner anticipates that $30 billion in revenue will be generated by products and services that did not exist pre-pandemic.
Gartner analysts said the rapid expansion of cloud services, digital business initiatives and remote services opened the door for new possibilities in integrations and optimization.
COVID-19 also reduced barriers for those outside of IT to create technology-based solutions by providing an entry point for anyone who was able to serve pandemic-induced needs. These entrants include nontechnology professions within enterprises – or “business technologists” – citizen developers, data scientists and AI systems that generate software.
Technology providers are now finding themselves increasingly entering markets related to, or in competition with, nontechnology providers, including innovative firms in financial services and retail. The latter is creating IT-driven solutions more frequently and with more ambition as more enterprises continue their digital transformation efforts.
Gartner expects high-profile announcements of technology launches from nontech companies to proliferate over the next 12 months.
“The availability of business technologists provides new sources of innovation and the ability to get work done. Thus, technology and service providers will need to extend their sourcing of ideas and technology development into new communities, whether they are based on citizen development, their own customer communities or other sources,” said Kandaswamy.