Technology is booming for business. A roundup of new research released last week revolves around the adoption of innovation and the trend away from legacy tools. But that doesn’t mean every business is keeping up with the tech times or with every kind of technology.
Reports find differences in the adoption of IT hardware versus software, mobile devices and virtual cards. Research also uncovered gaps in how businesses interact with innovative tools depending on who’s using it — financial executive versus corporate traveler and even millennial business owner versus Baby Boomer. Dig through the data below to discover who’s getting a grip on technology and where businesses are falling flat.
$850 billion will be spent on IT by SMEs by 2020, new analysis from Technavio reported. The figure represents nearly a 6 percent compound annual growth rate in spend on IT services, hardware and software, researchers added. While software is slated to come in last place of those three categories in terms of total dollar spend, the area is forecasted to see the highest CAGR — more than 6 percent — beating out IT services and hardware growth. Researchers pointed to SaaS enterprise resource planning offerings from top names like Microsoft and SAP as leading this influx of software adoption among SMEs.
87% of millennial small business owners consider themselves tech-savvy, telling surveyors that they believe they are successful in efforts to stay on top of technology development for their companies. A research report released from Chase also found that the percentage of millennials that consider themselves on top of the latest tech trends surpasses those of Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers. Millennial small business owners are also more likely to view social media as an important tool for their companies and to describe feeling in control of their enterprises, compared to the other generational demographics.
75% of finance executives say technology is changing the game, at least in terms of how the finance function operates within an organization. The statistic was released by Genpact and HfS Research last week in an effort to examine what the role of the financial executive will look like in the future.
21 new banks joined SWIFT’s B2B payments innovation initiative, the financial messaging company reported last week. The effort aims to explore how to increase the speed and transparency of cross-border payments, first targeting corporate payments. Now, it includes participants like Bank of China, Bank of America, BNP Paribas, Citi, JPMorgan Chase and Royal Bank of Canada. The pilot program will run through the end of the year, with results from the exploration and collaborations being presented in September, SWIFT stated.
Less than 20% of corporate travelers book flights on a smartphone, a statistic released by Phocuswright last week that calls into question the so-called mobile revolution in the corporate travel industry. While mobile devices have been instrumental in promoting technology development of expense management solutions, the actual booking process of corporate travel has yet to take off on the smartphone. Researchers also found that less than one-third of hotels were booked on a mobile device among business travelers. Overall, corporate travel spend is seeing slowed growth through 2017.
A 10% decline in fleet card numbers will hit Europe this decade, according to analysis from the “Commercial Cards in Europe 2015” report. But a reduction in the number of fleet cards — at present, the most common type of commercial card in Europe — doesn’t mean commercial cards are getting less popular; recent legislation that does not specify commercial cards as falling under the jurisdiction of the interchange fee cap is likely to mean card issuers will be pushing their commercial card products to avoid a hit in profits, researchers concluded. Previous research on this same topic suggested a move towards single-use and virtual cards as a key factor behind changing commercial card trends across the continent.
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