E-Business
Non-Techie Businesses IT Budget to Exceed IT Organization- Report

A new update to the Worldwide Semiannual IT Spending Guide: Line of Business from the International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts worldwide corporate IT spending funded by non-IT business units will reach $609 billion in 2017, an increase of 5.9% over 2016.
The Spending Guide, which quantifies the purchasing power of line of business (LoB) technology buyers by providing a detailed examination of where the funding for a variety of IT purchases originates, also forecasts LoB spending to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9% over the 2015-2020 forecast period.
In comparison, technology spending by IT buyers is forecast to have a five-year CAGR of 2.3%. By 2020, IDC expects LoB technology spending to be nearly equal to that of the IT organization.
“Companies’ adaptation of Innovation Accelerators, such as Internet of Things, Cognitive/AI systems, and 3D Printing, together with the four Pillar technologies of the 3rd Platform, to both new product and service developments and day-to-day business operations has fundamentally increased Line of Business spending on IT,” said Naoko Iwamoto, senior market analyst with the IDC Japan IT Spending Group.
“The Innovation Accelerators have put the line of business units in the frontline of the digital transformation and have forced them to work either alone with the ecosystem outside of the IT organization as ‘shadow IT’ or in closer collaboration with the IT department than ever before.”
IDC’s Line of Business taxonomy identifies two major types of technology spending – purchases funded by the IT organization and purchases funded by technology buyers outside of IT. Joint purchases can be funded by either IT or the functional business unit while “shadow IT” projects are funded from the functional area budget without the knowledge, involvement, or support of the IT department.
Although some technology categories are dominated by IT spending, most involve outlays from both IT and the business units. For example, worldwide IT spending on servers, storage, and network equipment is forecast to total $114.1 billion this year, while LoB spending on these items will total $52.9 billion.
However, IT is not the primary source of funding for all hardware purchases. Business unit spending on PCs, monitors, mobile phones, printers, and tablets will total $83.8 billion worldwide this year compared to $76.2 billion spent by the IT department. And line of business buyers will spend more on software applications in 2017 ($150.7 billion) than IT buyers ($64.7 billion).
The technology categories that will see the most spending from LoB buyers in 2017 will be applications ($150.7 billion), project-oriented services ($120.3 billion), and outsourcing ($70.3 billion).
The categories that will receive the most spending from IT buyers this year will be outsourcing ($149.2 billion), project-oriented services ($82.2 billion), and support and training ($79.8 billion).
Combined IT-LoB purchases of outsourcing and project-oriented services ($422 billion) will represent nearly one third of all technology spending worldwide in 2017. The technology categories that will see the fastest growth in spending over the 2015-2020 forecast period are tablets (16.2% CAGR for IT and LoB purchases combined) and midrange enterprise servers (14.7% combined CAGR).
LoB buyers will also continue to invest aggressively in applications and application development and deployment (8.5% and 9.3% CAGRs, respectively).
In 2017, IDC expects LoB technology spending to be larger than IT organization spending in five industries: discrete manufacturing, healthcare, media, personal and consumer services, and securities and investment services.
By 2020, this number is forecast to grow to nine as the insurance, process manufacturing, professional services, and retail industries see LoB purchases move ahead of IT purchases. The industries with the fastest growth in LoB spending are professional services (6.9% CAGR), healthcare (6.6%), and banking (6.5%).
However, LoB technology spending is forecast to grow faster than that of the IT organization in all 16 industries covered in the spending guide.
On a geographic basis, the IT organization will be the largest source of technology spending throughout the forecast in all but four countries: the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
And like the industry trend, LoB spending is forecast to grow at a faster rate than IT-led technology spending in nearly every country.
The countries that will experience the fastest LoB spending growth include Indonesia and the Philippines (each with a 12.2% CAGR), Argentina (11.1% CAGR), Peru (8.7% CAGR), and India (8.4% CAGR).
“Explosive cloud and other 3rd Platform technology adoption is enabling U.S. lines of businesses to rely less on enterprise IT than any other country to fund their technology purchases,” said Eileen Smith, program director, Customer Insights and Analysis.
“On average, U.S. line of business will fund 62% of their technology purchases in 2017. Looking to increase productivity and reduce organizational costs, IDC expects supply chain, human resources, and sales executives will fund the largest share of their companies’ technology purchases over the forecast period.”
“While the LoB-funded IT spending shows steady growth of 3.1% CAGR in the forecast period in Japan, almost 70% of technology spending comes from IT with a 1.3% CAGR,” said Iwamoto.
“As the competition escalates in the worldwide marketplace as well as with the disruptors from different industry segments, Japanese companies are trying to hold their position by employing a globally standardized IT and business processes initiated at the headquarters. The reinforcement of the IT governance among Japanese large enterprises will keep the higher ratio of IT funded.”
The IDC Worldwide Semiannual IT Spending Guide: Line of Business quantifies the purchasing power of the non-IT department technology buyer by detailing enterprise IT spending for 20 technologies and 12 corporate functional areas across 16 enterprise industries in eight regions and 53 countries.
This IDC Spending Guide provides a granular view of the market for IT spending from a geographic, industry, functional (LoB), and technology perspective. Unlike any other research in the industry, the LoB Spending Guide was designed to help business and IT decision makers to better understand the scope and direction of corporate technology spending over the next five years.
E-Business
Gov. Mbah Tasks Youths to Embrace Technology as Enugu Tech Festival Opens

The 2025 Enugu Tech Festival being organised by the Enugu State Government kicked off yesterday with the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, describing it as the biggest technology conference that has ever happened in Nigeria.
Tijani said the Tech Festival, which attracted thousands of youths from within and outside the state, was a major leap for Nigeria’s determination to build a robust digital economy, noting that Enugu State under Governor Peter Mbah, had moved from policy to progress to lead the tech revolution in Nigeria.
This was even as Governor Peter Mbah urged the youths to embrace technology, insisting that the future is technology.
Speaking, the Minister said that the Tech Festival, tagged Coal to Code, fitted into the agenda and activities of the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, having recognised that the future of digital economy in Nigeria would not only be built in Abuja, but would instead be co-created across all states.
“Enugu is showing how this should and will be done. I have never, never been to a conference on technology in Nigeria that is this big. I founded the first technology hub in Nigeria, the very first in Nigeria. So, I know a thing or two when technology people gather. I can assure you that today, you are part of history because we have never seen anything this big in Nigeria before.
“There is something powerful about your state: the energy, the ambition, the possibilities. Just two years ago, only a few people could imagine this kind of tech momentum. But today, Enugu has not just imagined, Enugu is building it. Under two years, we have seen investment in digital infrastructure, and the innovation ecosystem of the state.
“What is happening today in Enugu is part of something bigger. We are now witnessing a generational rise, not one where people complain and protest, but one where creativity is used to shape the future. Not just with passion, but with precision,” he stated.
While commending the participants for rising to “create the kind of Nigeria the world will pay attention to,” Tijani called for collaboration, commitment, and hard work by all stakeholders to make it happen.
“Progress is not automatic, but needs all of us. It needs the government to continue to be brave. It needs the private sector to invest deeper. It needs mentors, builders, teachers, and it needs leaders,” he concluded.
Speaking, Governor Mbah, while highlighting how his administration had invested in technology to dramatically revolutionise security, land administration, education, among others, noted that the Enugu Tech Festival was part of his government’s wider efforts to build the youth of the state into wealth creators and highly sought-after workforce of tomorrow’s workplace.
“The power of technology and innovation and what we can accomplish is something that I want the youths to be mindful of. If you look at the way things are being done in the world today, we are now talking about an era where people just sit down with great ideas, create platforms where they begin to essentially benefit from that platform.
“An example is the Uber that came and disrupted the city taxi without owning a key. Today, they provide by far the largest traffic just by creating a platform. You can extend that to Airbnb.
Without owning a key, these guys have disrupted the business of those who own several brick and mortar houses. You can also extend that to Tesla. That is the power of technology. This shows essentially that technology is where the future is,” he emphasised.
In his remark, the Commissioner for Innovation, Science and Technology, Dr. Lawrence Ezeh, said the Enugu Tech Festival, which would now become an annual event, underscored a paradigm shift from the old Enugu known for coal to one that has become a rising force in Nigeria’s tech-driven future, a beacon of innovation, intellectual capital, digital enterprise, and endless possibilities.
“For decades, our identity was built on coal, a resource that powered Nigeria’s industrial rise. But today, we stand in a different kind of power—the power of knowledge, innovation, and technology,” he stated.
Also at the event were the Minister of Youth Development, Ayodele Olawande; Speaker, Enugu State House of Assembly, Hon. Uchenna Ugwu; former Minister of Science and Technology, Prof. Barth Nnaji; Chairman of Zinox Technical, Leo Stan Ejeh; and the Group Managing Director, Afrinvest, Dr. Ike Chioke, among a host of others.
E-Business
Firm Finds Leaked Netflix, Roblox and Discord Accounts Registered on Corporate emails

Employees may also use corporate emails to register for personal accounts on marketplaces and social media, increasing the risk of account theft and corporate security breaches, according to a study by Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence.
Kaspersky shares these findings and suggests key cybersecurity practices to mitigate the risks of credential leaks.
Kaspersky experts analysed compromised credentials leaked on the dark web between 2019 and 2024 for three popular entertainment platforms: Roblox, Discord and Netflix. The analysis revealed that, on average, 7% of users whose accounts were leaked had registered on these platforms using a corporate email address.
“Registering on various services for personal use with a work email is not best practice. First, you may lose access to these accounts if you change jobs. Second, it can pose security risks for both you and your company.
“If your passwords follow a predictable pattern across different services – for example, ‘Word2025!’, where ‘2025’ is a recurring part – it increases the likelihood of other accounts being compromised, including your work account, should your corporate email be exposed in a dark web leak,” explains Sergey Shcherbel, expert at Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence.
Kaspersky experts also found that bank employees most commonly registered their work email addresses on streaming services, marketplaces and social networks. In a few cases, corporate emails were also used as logins on gaming platforms and adult content websites.
Corporate email usage on entertainment platforms: statistics from a sample of 50 banking sector companies.
To conduct this study, experts compiled a sample of 50 banking sector companies and examined compromised credentials leaked on the dark web, identifying those linked to the corporate domains of these companies across five categories of popular platforms.
Learn more in the report. In light of this growing infostealer threat, Kaspersky has launched a dedicated landing page to raise awareness of the issue and provide strategies for mitigating associated risks.
If you encounter a data leak through infostealers, the following steps should be taken immediately:
- Change compromised account passwords and monitor for suspicious activity associated with those accounts.
- Run full security scans on all devices, removing any detected malware.
- Companies are recommended to monitor dark web markets proactively to detect compromised accounts before they pose risks to customers or employees. A detailed guide on setting up monitoring can be found here. Leverage Kaspersky Digital Footprint Intelligence to track what cybercriminals know about your company’s assets, identify potential attack vectors, and implement protective measures in a timely manner.
- As an enterprise, implement a security awareness program for employees, including regular training and performance assessments. Enforce a strict password policy for all corporate resources to reduce the risks of encountering credential-related cyber threats.
E-Business
NDPC, Mastercard Partner to Strengthen Data Protection

Nigeria Data Protection Commission (NDPC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Mastercard to enhance data protection in Nigeria.

Dr. Vincent Olatunji, commissioner, NDPC and Derek Ho,deputy chief privacy officer, Mastercard
The agreement was sealed during a workshop where 150 Data Protection Officers (DPOs) were trained on Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs).
Dr. Vincent Olatunji, commissioner, NDPC, said the event kicks off activities for the 8th NADPA conference, highlighting government efforts to train more certified DPOs.
Olatunji also disclosed the Federal Government’s commitment to increasing the number of certified DPOs with the required skills to manage data protection.
He noted that Nigeria’s digital-savvy youth are key to driving this agenda.
“Human capital is really key to us, and the ecosystem we are regulating is very special. It is still new, still emerging, and we need all we can to build the capacity of officers.
“We want to build the capacity of our people so we can be able to deliver on our mandate and fully deepen privacy in Nigeria.
“We are targeting to build the capacity of 250,000 DPOs annually, and we are working with partners like Mastercard to achieve that,” he said.
Derek Ho,deputy chief privacy officer, Mastercard, also stressed the need for collaboration to build trust in the digital economy and urged participants to embrace training as data protection keeps evolving.
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