While 58 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) in Australia and New Zealand expect that their budgets will be flat or declining, technology spending is forecast to grow 4.1 percent in 2015 in Australia (compared to 1.75 percent in 2014) and 2.9 percent in New Zealand (up from 1.2 percent in 2014).

Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president at Gartner and global head of Research, explained to an audience of more than 1,500 CIOs and IT leaders at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Australia today that this represents a dramatic shift in IT spending power, with a shift of demand and control away from IT and toward digital business units closer to the customer.

“Thirty-eight percent of global IT spend is outside of IT already, with a disproportionate amount in digital. By 2017, it will be over 50 percent,” Mr. Sondergaard said. “Digital startups sit inside your own organization, in your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales. Your business units are acting as technology startups. Australia and New Zealand are increasingly known for creative and design expertise, with leading global vendors looking here to make acquisitions. You need to tap into this in your organization and make it a competitive advantage.”

Gartner estimates that 50 percent of all technology sales people are actively selling direct to business units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people, and hundreds of thousands of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid digital world, and they are finding eager buyers.