Qing Hu

A 2004 report by consulting firm Gartner Dataquest forecasts that the worldwide market for IT services will top $762.3 billion in 2008, up from $608.1 billion in 2004. The Asia-Pacific region's compound annual growth rate of 9.7% (projected 2003--2008) leads the world. IT services revenue in the region will thus top $43.9 billion in 2008, as China surpasses South Korea to become one of the three largest IT services markets in the region, along with Japan and Australia.The growth of China's enterprise software market in 2003--2004 reflected this broader trend. Sales of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, according to a 2004 China Computer World (CCW) research survey, totaled 1.19 billion yuan ($144 million U.S.) in the first half of 2004, up 29% over the same period a year earlier. Human resources software posted sales growth of 80.4% for the first half of 2004 over the same period a year earlier. On the other hand, customer relationship management software sales barely crossed the 200-million-yuan mark, up 2.2% over the same period a year earlier. Nonetheless, the CCW survey anticipated a customer relationship software boom in five years when Chinese companies have had enough time to digest their operational-level IT investments and move on to more sophisticated management software. Despite the mixed outcomes in terms of ERP implementation and use in China [4], the CCW survey found that 47% of Chinese enterprises had installed ERP modules, with an annual growth rate of 5% for new installations.