New projections from ComplexDiscovery point toward steady expansion ahead for the worldwide electronic discovery (eDiscovery) software and services market.
According to the latest forecast analysis, spending on solutions facilitating investigation and litigation of digital information for legal and compliance purposes will rise at a compound annual rate exceeding eight per cent through 2028.
Developed markets have hitherto dominated eDiscovery spending. However, the portion claimed by the combined Rest of World (ROW) region, encompassing emerging European countries alongside other geographies, is set to grow markedly over the coming five years.
As per the research, aggregate global spending on eDiscovery offerings reached 15 billion US dollars as of 2023. By 2028, this figure could surpass 22 billion US dollars due to several prevailing tailwinds. Key drivers include increasing data volume and complexity across enterprises, thus making solutions to efficiently sort, cull, and review information more indispensable. The study suggests that while North America will remain the largest market, its eDiscovery market share will gradually recede from 70 per cent to 65 per cent as other regions mature. Meanwhile, the ROW market, including Europe, will expand its share from 30 per cent to 35 per cent.
Drilling down further, the report forecasts the software tools component of eDiscovery outpacing the growth of overall services.
Software spending is projected to hit nine billion US dollars in five years, representing an 11 per cent compound annual expansion. This growth reflects the integration of more advanced analytics and automation functionalities around areas like document classification, facial recognition, and generative artificial intelligence. Such capabilities can significantly streamline unsorted data sets for human review.
Again, ROW nations, including those across Europe, lag behind North American adoption. But their appetite for streamlined eDiscovery software is expected to pick up notably.
The research also signals definitive shifts within eDiscovery solution deployment methods. While still a multi-billion-dollar segment, spending on traditional on-premise software installations is forecast to decline from 32 per cent currently to 27 per cent% by 2028 as preference moves toward cloud-based delivery models.
This migration reflects recognition of the flexibility, scalability, and savings cloud solutions offer. It also opens doors for smaller niche players to compete. The study particularly calls out growth potential around business-focused Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) environments.
Finally, the analysis forecasts increased outsourcing of eDiscovery activities by corporations to external law firms and service providers in the coming years.
Initially, this stems from rising data complexities outpacing in-house processing capabilities and staff bandwidth. It also reflects an opportunity for legal departments to reduce costs while refocusing human capital on more value-added advisory services versus data administration. Due to expanding compliance obligations, external service providers’ success will depend on combining comprehensive technology toolsets with extensive regulatory expertise.
While the eDiscovery marketplace has already seen stellar growth this century, underlying conditions seem primed to fuel another robust expansion phase through the latter part of the decade. The ROW region, including Europe, looks set to claim a more significant portion of activity as the adoption of more advanced and efficient eDiscovery software accelerates. Local and international firms appear well-positioned to capitalise on the window now opening.
Read the complete article at The Next Five Years in eDiscovery: Market Size Forecast for 2023-2028 (complexdiscovery.com).
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