This IDC study provides a 2012–2016 forecast and analysis for the worldwide project and portfolio management (PPM) market, which experienced a significant growth of 12.9% in 2011, around double the market's 2010 PPM growth of 6.4% (which was up from declines of 2.7% in 2009). Decision making in brittle financial environments demands effective prioritization, and we saw strong revenue growth from all major and key innovative smaller PPM vendors in 2011, with few exceptions. More generally, the increasing role and complexity of sourcing for projects, programs, and portfolios in the enterprise and the need to align with business needs, corporate governance, and a plethora of regulatory requirements have combined to retain the ongoing strong growth for PPM as the economy shifts. IDC has seen increased alignment of PPM with ERP, the evolution and rapid uptake of SaaS PPM, and increased coordination with application life-cycle management (ALM). Agile and service management vendors have been leveraging PPM through alliances, integration, and/or acquisitions. (Recent agile integration announcements include agile vendor Rally Software's product integration with CA Technologies, Daptiv, Oracle, and Planisware, released at the Agile2011 Conference in August 2011.) This began to have an impact in 2011 and will continue to play a role in market growth through 2014. IDC's forecasts show continuing growth in the PPM segment during our five-year forecast period.

"Global 2000 organizations continue to struggle with the complexity of project, program, and product delivery while seeking to manage economic and political volatility as operational and business needs change and swirl dynamically. Agile management of human, financial, and other resources is key. In response, demand will remain ongoing for PPM tools throughout our forecast period across the PPM segments ranging from IT PPM, service resource planning, and new product development through to capital projects such as engineering and construction," says Melinda Ballou, program director for Application Life-Cycle Management and Executive Strategies at IDC. "Smaller vendors will continue to play a key role in product and market innovation, and differentiated PPM solutions will come into play in that context as further consolidation and product evolution occurs."