The Canadian tech market will grow in 2019 and 2020, but growth will slow from 6% in 2018 to 3.7% in 2019, according to Forrester’s report, “The Canadian Tech Market Outlook For 2019 To 2020.” The healthy growth of the Canadian tech market has largely been caused by an expansion in cloud services and government emphasis on technology investment and innovation. These growth rates, while healthy, will level off as the Canadian economy slows in 2019 and 2020.

Since 2017, the Canadian tech market has kept pace with the US. But in 2019, we anticipate that the US tech market will expand a percentage point faster than Canada. The Canadian economy is heavily weighted toward industries that historically spend less on technology, but Canadian firms can bolster their ability to win, serve, and retain customers by placing an emphasis on business technology (BT) spending. Canadian BT spending will continue to increase in 2019 by 7.3% and by 6.1% in 2020, demonstrating the willingness of many Canadian firms to give priority to tech investments that will help them grow revenues.

(Patrick Carroll helped draft this blog.)