The cloud will be the carrier for the three other forces: mobile, social media and big data.

The IT industry is entering a “nexus of forces”, which includes a confluence and integration of cloud, social collaboration, mobile and information. “This is a time of accelerating change, where your current IT architecture will be rendered obsolete,” said Gartner Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research Peter Sondergaard. “You must lead through this change, selectively destroy low-impact systems, and aggressively change your IT cost structure. This is the next age of computing.”

Delivering Gartner’s outlook for the IT industry for 2013, Mr Sondergaard said new business models will emerge in the Asia Pacific as organisations in the region innovate and compete using this nexus of forces.

He described the cloud as the carrier for the three other forces: mobile is personal cloud, social media is only possible via the cloud, and big data is the killer app for the cloud. Cloud is not merely about cost-cutting,” he said. “Organisations moving to the cloud are also attracted by the new capabilities they do not get today. It is bringing new approaches to designing applications, specifically for the cloud, and providing more resilience by architecturing failure as a design concept. Cloud also teaches us about services and service levels, and the contrast between what the business wants for outcomes versus IT’s old methods of getting there.”

With regard to the personal cloud represented by the mobile, Gartner predicts that by 2016, more than 1.6 billion smart mobile devices will be purchased globally. Two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40 per cent of the workforce will be mobile. The challenge for IT leaders will be to determine what to do with this new channel to their customers and employees.

“Mobile is about computing at the right time, in the moment. It is the point of entry for all applications, delivering personalised, contextual experiences,” Mr Sondergaard said. “It means marketing gets more time with the customer; employees become more productive; and process flows get dramatically cut.”

In the area of social computing, Gartner predicts that while dominant consumer social networks will reach the limits of their growth within the next three years, social computing will move from being “just on the outside of the organisation” to being at the core of business operations. “It is changing the fundamentals of management: how you establish a sense of purpose and motivate people to act. Social computing will move organisations from hierarchical structures and defined teams to communities that can cross any organisational boundary,” said Mr Sondergaard.

As for the “killer app” for the cloud, big data, Gartner noted that by tapping a continual stream of information from internal and external sources, businesses today have an endless array of new opportunities for transforming decision-making; discovering new insights; optimising the business; and innovating their industries.

Big data creates a new layer in the economy which is all about information - turning information, or data, into revenue. This will accelerate growth in the global economy and create jobs.

“Big data is about looking ahead, beyond what everybody else sees,” said Mr Sondergaard. “You need to understand how to deal with hybrid data, meaning the combination of structured and unstructured data, and how you shine a light on ‘dark data’. Dark data is the data being collected, but going unused despite its value. Leading organisations of the future will be distinguished by the quality of their predictive algorithms. This is the CIO challenge and opportunity.”

Riding on these opportunities, Gartner predicts that IT spending in the Asia Pacific will reach US$743 billion in 2013, an increase of 7.9 per cent over 2012. “As global markets improve in 2013 and resume growth, Asia Pacific remains one of the bright spots of the global IT market, allowing organisations in this region to accelerate competitiveness,” said Mr Sondergaard.