Brazilian companies to boost IT spend this year

If the overall economic environment helps and the impact of events such as the World Cup and presidential elections is positive, Brazilian organizations will be increasing their technology investment as a percentage of revenue.

According to an annual study on corporate IT use by Brazilian business school Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), Brazilian companies invested an average of 7.5 percent of their revenue in technology during 2013 - this is a small uplift in relation to 2012, when the investment sat at 7.2 percent.

However, the study also suggests that if the various big events taking place in Brazil this year have a positive impact on business, technology spend should reach 8 percent in 2014.

While this might seem like a big increase locally, it is not a lot when compared to IT spend elsewhere: according to the same report, the average technology spend as a percentage of revenue in the United States in 2013 was 12 percent and in Europe, about 15 percent.

The FGV research added that a significant variation in IT spend could be verified across different industry verticals in Brazil: while retailers invested 3.3 percent in technology as a percentage of revenue, companies in the manufacturing sector put 4.6 percent towards IT.

Some 2,300 medium and large organizations were polled by FGV for the survey - this corresponds about 68 percent of all of the largest companies in Brazil.