Although it may be no surprise to managed service providers, the global managed services spending forecast is expected to reach over $193 billion by 2019, nearly double its 2014 level of roughly $107 billion. The survey, issued by research company MarketsandMarkets projects the managed services spending levels to grow at a CAGR of 12.5%.
For MSPs, this news should be most welcome as further evidence that the managed services marketplace is expanding with real opportunities, spanning a variety of service and market verticals.
While the report may be tracking a very broad segment of "managed services" spending, an arguably more important number would be the percentage of managed services spending taking place in context with the overall IT services spending. Gartner projected the 2014 IT services spend to be roughly $960 billion. If managed services (according to MarketsandMarkets) spending in 2014 is $107 billion, then by 2019 the number could represent nearly 20% of all IT services spending around the world.
Now, obviously the total IT services spending amount will likely not stay the same or even decrease in the next few years, but it may not increase radically either. This report also does not factor in common cloud computing services, which can often be categorized as either managed services or services commonly offered by managed service providers. If this assumption is true, then the total "managed services spend could actually be much greater.
Still, this is good news no matter how you slice it and MSPs have a lot to be thankful for in 2015.
