Forrester is reducing projections for global tech market growth to 3.9% in 2014, according to an updated report out today. The original projection predicted growth of 5.5% globally. Accordingly, Forrester’s growth projections for 2015 have also been adjusted to 5.6%, down from the 8.1% growth that we predicted in January 2014.

Despite these regressions, customer-process tech spending will remain a key driver of growth, particularly in the US. In fact, these technologies, like customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation software-as-a-service (SaaS) apps, mobile applications, and analytics and big data for identifying ways to win, serve, and retain customers, will grow faster than the overall tech market — rising by 10.5% in 2014 and 11.1% in 2015. However, almost half of the global spending on these technologies will take place in the US.

Whatever the changes on the customer-facing parts of the business, firms still need the back-office systems that are used by employees to run the business. On a global basis, spending on these systems will rise by 3.4% in 2014 and 6.7% in 2015.

Andy Bartels outlines all of this and more in his report, “A Weak Start To 2014 Economic Growth Leads To Slower Global Tech Market Growth.” Learn more here.