Enterprises to spend average of $31.4m on tech in next three years

A WalkMe study has found that enterprises are planning to invest an average of $31.36m in increasing tech uptake over the next three years

Plans to invest in tech come as enterprises struggle to maximise value from their existing IT — WalkMe‘s State of Digital Adoption Report revealed that this is resulting in $96m being lost per year.

Particular factors identified included:

  • additional spend needed to meet strategic goals ($32.5m lost);
  • spending to compensate for employees’ lack of digital dexterity ($21m);
  • applications not realising their full value ($15.8m).

However, maximising uptake isn’t always present within strategic goals or key performance indicators (KPIs), with 60 per cent of enterprises going without a clear digital adoption strategy, while 59 percent lack specific KPIs designed to measure adoption.

Limitations towards adoption are also being recognised — 61 per cent have been sold applications that were presented as “easy to use,” but turned out to be the opposite.

What’s more, the traditional ways in which enterprises are looking to maximise the value of their tech investments are proving futile, with 60 per cent of respondents citing change management programs as “no longer fit for purpose”.

Tech for employee experience

When it comes to maintaining productivity and morale among the workforce, enterprises demonstrate awareness of the key role that technology now plays in this endeavour.

64 per cent of enterprises surveyed believe that tech and end-user experience come before office facilities in priority when looking to attract and retain talent.

Alongside this, it’s known that staff training and support should be tailored to the individual, with 63 per cent of respondents stating that a one-size-fits-all approach to this area of operations “isn’t applicable”.

Meanwhile, 61 percent believe that poor employee experiences with IT are likely to add to the “Great Resignation“, and just 37 per cent can say with confidence that employees are using new technology correctly.

“Technology is the lifeblood of organisations, with most saying it’s more important than a head office. Yet by failing to make full use of the resources at their disposal, enterprises are constantly subjecting themselves to needless losses,” said Ofir Bloch, vice-president of strategic positioning at WalkMe.

“Whether it’s projects failing to meet expectations, an inability to maximise the value of application investments; falling behind on strategic goals; compensating for employees’ lack of digital dexterity; or employee churn caused by frustrations with technology, the costs all add up.

“Every enterprise has the potential to take full control of their digital investments, but they need the right approach in order to do so.”

1,475 senior business leaders at enterprises based across North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand were surveyed by SaaS provider WalkMe for its second annual Digital Adoption Report.

Related:

Data management considerations for the agile enterprise — Fredrik Forslund, vice-president, enterprise & cloud erasure solutions at Blancco, discusses what data management considerations need to be made by an agile enterprise.

Where can enterprise IT really apply big data? — Bill Scudder, senior vice-president and general manager, AIoT solutions at Aspen Technology, discusses where enterprise IT within industrial organisations can best apply big data.