1. Technology priorities for the year ahead
Looking to the year ahead, business leaders were asked which specific technology application they were prioritizing in order to support future business growth. The research also looked at whether the senior management team had the required skills set needed to ensure the business fully leveraged its technology investments.
The top technology priorities for business leaders in the year ahead were digital transformation, customer experience, data strategy and cloud.
A striking finding was the range of applications mentioned by firms from across the globe. Almost all the businesses included in this survey listed at least one of these applications as fundamental to supporting business growth in the year ahead, while more than a third of those surveyed (34%) picked five or more options, demonstrating the essential but varied role technology will play in supporting business growth around the globe.
In contrast, in many cases — such as digital transformation, customer experience and data strategy — the management team’s technology proficiency lagged behind the needs of the business. Here a key pressure point emerged: the personal technology proficiency of decision-makers was strong in areas of technology that were not an urgent priority for businesses (such as design, engineering and products), whereas their proficiency failed to keep pace with the big priority areas for 2021, such as data strategy, cloud, customer experience and digital transformation.
Which technology applications does your business need to focus on over the next 12 months in order to grow and prosper — by management team proficiency in this area