Midsize Enterprise (mse)

Gartner defines midsize enterprise (MSE) as those organizations that have between $50 million and $1 billion in annual revenues and/or 100 to 2500 employees. This is a vendor‑driven segmentation scheme and segmenting midsize enterprises by revenues or number of employees is arbitrary. Midsize enterprise is a term essentially born out of a process of elimination — it refers to the organizations that are neither Global 2000 enterprises nor small businesses.

Midsize enterprises are bound not so much by a similar set of IT needs, but by a similar set of challenges — most notably, limitations in IT staffing, skills and funding. The cross‑industry average for IT full‑time equivalents, as a percent of employees is 4.9% for midsize enterprises. The 2025 cross-industry median IT spending as a percent of revenue for midsize enterprises is 4.3%, compared to the median of 3.1% for all enterprises. For additional midsize enterprise CIO and IT Leader insights, visit the midsize enterprise page.

Standard terminology for defining midsize enterprise at Gartner:

• Midsize enterprise (CIOs in midsize enterprises)
• Midsize organization (security leaders in midsize organizations)
• Midmarket – to describe the collective group of midsize enterprises (midmarket CIOs …)
• MSE – acronym (MSE I&O leaders)