Technology adoption among businesses has become an increasingly important aspect of investment over the last five years—particularly after the onset of the pandemic.
Today, there are very few organizations that don’t have some kind of strategy for digital transformation in place; even if it’s a small initiative like a plan to reduce printing costs through technology.
The reason for the amount of investment being poured into digital tech by companies is simply that tech adoption provides a competitive advantage by improving operational processes, offering new opportunities to generate prospects and leads, and reducing waste by streamlining workflows.
We’ve put together 30 of the most revealing technology adoption stats to give executives and decision makers an understanding of why implementation is important in today’s business environment.
1. SMB IT spending in the United States is forecast to grow by 6% in 2021 compared to 2020.
2. The top three initiatives for technology spend remained the same in 2021 as in 2020—digital transformation, cybersecurity, and the cloud.
3. Cost saving is the fastest-growing initiative related to technology adoption.
4. The need to update outdated infrastructure was cited as one of the most sought-after business needs by two-thirds of companies.
5. The biggest drivers of IT services spending are managed services, data/platform integration, cloud orchestration, and business process automation.
6. 65% of businesses with over 100 employees are currently in the process of a digital transformation plan.
7. For businesses with between 20–99 employees, this figure is 47%.
8. Accounting for all SMBs, 50% are executing a DX plan, 30% are planning one, and 20% have no plans for digital transformation.
9. Two-thirds (64%) of SMBs state that technology adoption is a primary factor in pursuing their business objectives.
10. 86% of decision makers anticipate digital transformation to continue accelerating.
11. Organizations on average allocate 64% of tech spend to running business operations and the remaining 36% to growth and innovation initiatives.
12. Cloud spend has increased significantly, with many organizations spending almost a third (30%) of their IT budget on cloud tech, surpassing on-premise software (24%) and SaaS (10%).
13. As a result of the pandemic, half of all organizations have increased public cloud and SaaS spending.
14. Only 42% of businesses state they were prepared for the effects of COVID because of prior digital transformation plans.
15. The majority (53%) of decision makers say their business is in a better position now compared to last summer.
16. As a result of the pandemic, businesses have accelerated the digitization of customer interactions through technology, with 65% of interactions now being digital, up from 2019 (41%) and 2018 (25%).
17. While in 2011 51% of organizations had at least one portion of their computing infrastructure based in the cloud, that figure had by 2020 risen to 81% and is expected to increase further through the 2020s.
18. Decision makers indicate their organizations waste about 30% of their total cloud spend.
19. 59% of SMBs report to be “mostly satisfied” with their use of technology, while 34% are somewhat satisfied/dissatisfied.
20. When it comes to desired outcomes from tech spend, the majority of SMB executives want to see a better customer experience (23%), followed by improved worker productivity (17%), and improving competitiveness in their industry vertical (16%).
21. 87% of c-level SMB executives say digitization of the customer experience will impact their business.
22. 6% see customer experience as their primary competitive differentiator.
23. 83% of business leaders agree that data-driven processes are essential to staying competitive—just 17% disagree.
24. More than 1 in 4 SMB leaders say improving business processes and operation efficiency throughout their supply chain is the number one priority guiding for their tech adoption plans.
25. 72% of SMB leaders believe a single centralized application to manage all their business functions is an important part of their future plans.
26. Between 2019 and 2020, the average number of applications used in SMBs declined from 5.2 to 4.6, suggesting organizations are looking to centralize and consolidate their software.
27. The vast majority of consumers (88%) expect businesses to accelerate digital initiatives to better serve them.
28. SMBs on average were found to have digitized 44% of their business operational processes.
29. The top 4 industries when it comes to digitization are IT services (70% of companies digitally mature), agriculture (58%), financial services (56%), and education (54%).
30. The bottom 4 are NGOs and nonprofits (<1%), personal services (23%), and hospitality (29%).
Technology adoption in business is a crucial component for organizations that need to digitize their business operations to stay competitive.
As consumers become more accustomed to dealing with businesses almost exclusively online, companies in turn must accommodate their needs by investing in technology that helps them achieve their goals as regards efficiency and customer-centricity.
Whether this involves a website redesign to improve functionality and improve its visibility online, or back-office automation to reduce reliance on manual tasks, there are many use cases for technology adoption.
Moving forward, we can expect to see more SMBs expanding and investing in their technology budgets as digital transformation becomes a necessity for modern organizations.
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