Western European SCM Services Market, 2005-2009 Forecast and Analysis

This IDC study answers the following questions:

What are IDC's predictions and assumptions relating to market forces affecting the Western European SCM services market, and what impact will they have on the market forecasts? What is the size of the opportunity for providing SCM services in Western Europe in 2005 and for the next four years? What are the key recommendations from IDC for maintaining and growing SCM services revenues in the coming years?

"The SCM services market in Western Europe is doing relatively well. Although IDC estimates constant currency growth to have been only 5.2% in 2004, SCM remains a hot issue for many end users. Within the broad SCM services market, as IDC defines it, many healthy growth opportunities can be found," said Erik Bruin, research manager, European Services. "Procurement and sourcing and PLM are expected to grow the fastest in percentage terms. However, in absolute terms, while growing around the average of the whole SCM services market, the larger supply chain execution segment accounts for most growth. Although many people expect 2005 to become a year of RFID rollouts after 2004 having been a year mostly of trials only, IDC expects these rollouts to remain relatively small scale. RFID should become a real factor in our SCM services forecast in the last few years of the forecast period, but forecast uncertainty is still high."