The end of year is a time which always sparks predictions in the tech sector, so we caught up with ETB’s Managing Director, Nick Stapleton to understand what he thinks will happen over the coming year.
“As we move into 2023, those looking to make new IT purchases will continue to be impacted by the same supply chain challenges we saw this year resulting from the war in Ukraine, Brexit, and the ongoing semiconductor crisis. We don’t expect this to ease for at least 6-12 months at a minimum.
“The upshot has been a boost to those in the circular economy – particularly the refurbished IT sector – as more organisations have considered how they can continue their digital transformation programmes without delay, so have looked to new sources to improve or upgrade their IT infrastructure. We have seen this for ourselves, as we have noted a 44% increase in new customer spending from 2021-22 as more organisations realise the product quality and availability within the sector. We expect this trend to continue over the coming year and beyond as more businesses see how they can benefit directly from refurbished enterprise IT equipment. Parallel to this, we expect to see continued focus on quality and standards, not only for the hardware supplied, but for service and experiences too.
“Another factor that will lift the refurbished IT market will be the increased profile of ESG programmes. While the societal impact has always been an area of focus for businesses, the reskinning of ESG to become a governance-related topic has correlated with environmental awareness becoming a board-level issue. This is resulting in more financing coming into the industry from green investors, and while we have already seen some consolidation by large IT distributors, we would expect to see more of this over the coming year as distributors buy up others focused on areas like recycling.
“Continued growth around the sector will also require a stream of skilled employees to meet market demand. While we have seen some improvements in the tech skills gap, more organisations must use their position to shout about it and ensure they are part of the change rather than the problem. Looking outside of the box and engaging with young people in schools and colleges must happen. The recruitment marketplace is also likely to be boosted through entrants to the market coming from some of the big US-based tech businesses who are streamlining their teams.”
