Leading market research firm Gartner says worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.7 trillion in 2019,but should rebound in 2020 with growth forecast at 3.7%.

The report was released during a Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo in Orlando, where delegates were told that the catalyst for 2020 spending will be increasing demand for enterprise software.

The current slowdown in IT spending in 2019 is not expected to stretch as far into 2020, despite concerns over a recession and companies cutting back on discretionary IT spending, according to researchers.

The report highlights the complex geopolitical environment which has pushed regulatory compliance to the top of organisations’ priority list. Overall spending on security increased 10.5% in 2019, with cloud security projected to grow 41.2% over the next five years.

The report says the need to expand compliance with tariffs and trade policy, intellectual property rights and overlapping privacy laws is driving the enterprise software market.

Gartner predicts that organisations with a high percentage of IT spending dedicated to the cloud will become the recognised digital leaders in the future.