This IDC study highlights the major trends in the consulting and integration (C&I) services market in Australia. The C&I market incorporates the design, development, implementation, knowledge transfer, and continuous management of enterprise IT solutions. Specifically, IDC's C&I taxonomy comprises four segments: IT consulting, systems integration (SI), network consulting and integration services (NCIS), and custom application development (CAD). This study also provides key recommendations for vendors to maximise their opportunities in this space in the short term to midterm.

"The future of the C&I market in Australia will not be decided within the enterprise sector, which has reached a point where services and providers are so well embedded within the culture of the organisations that new business opportunities are few and far between. Growth within the C&I space will be strongest in the small and medium-sized business (SMB) segment of the market. Players looking to address this segment must consider taking the "productisation" route by offering standardised deliverables, project management, and service-level agreements (SLAs). By doing so, they will be able to reduce the cost of operations and, with the right channel partners, they will be able to get to the right customers," says Melissa Martin, senior market analyst, IDC Australia.