Global spending on IT will reach US$2.6 trillion in 2005, representing year-on-year growth of 5.6 percent, according to analysts from Gartner.

In Western Europe, however, growth in overall IT spending continues to lag behind other regions. Gartner predicts overall IT spending in Western Europe of $697 billion in 2005, or year-on-year growth of 3.6 percent.

The predictions were announced during Gartner"s Symposium/ITxpo in Barcelona earlier this month. Gartner said that many businesses are falsely interpreting this apparent slow-down in spending as a sign that the rate of change in IT might also be slowing down.

Peter Sondergaard, global head of research at Gartner, commented: "With mega-issues such as Y2K and major regulatory compliance mandates behind us, many IT professionals believe that, although, we are currently in an era where the issues in IT are still challenging, there are no significant challenges confronting IT users and providers today.

"However, nothing could be further from the truth. A series of upcoming technology and organizational changes will profoundly affect almost every major area of IT."

Roger Fulton, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner, points to a continued lack of confidence in the European economy as a key overall factor underpinning weak IT growth in the region.

"A general lack of confidence in the future is resulting in greater caution over spend," Fulton says. "In a slow economy organizations become more risk adverse, preferring to maintain the status quo, rather than deal with and invest in change."

Gartner said that IT leaders must demonstrate the confidence to manage the complexity inherent in technological and organizational change, even in a slow economy. This is crucial for information systems (IS) organizations to become a central contributor to the business.

Additional Gartner research presented at Symposium/ITxpo shows that nine out of ten IS organizations currently are playing an enabling role. However, where IT has moved beyond enabling to contributing, business expects and receives more value as organizations concentrate on delivering IT services to improve business results.

Sondergaard says: "Whereas an enabling organization will be told about an acquisition, and tasked with integrating the systems, a contributing organization would have been involved at the planning stage, and would have helped determine if the company was worth acquiring."

Once the decision has been made to manage the complexity inherent in becoming a business contributor, IS organizations need to make fundamental technological decisions in order to transform their businesses, he concludes.