PwC's 2013 Top 10 Technology Trends for Business Report Reveals the Emerging and Disruptive Technologies

In its 2013 Top 10 Technology Trends for Business report released today, PwC US reveals the most significant trends in technology that are reshaping strategies, business models, and enterprise investments this year. According to PwC, 10 significant trends will impact businesses this year:

1.     Pervasive Computing: The ability to digitally engage and interact (via your mobile devices) with enabled objects around you

2.     Cyber Security: Continues to be a pressing issue, as technology enabled processes increasingly underpin and fuel the global economy

3.     Big Data Mining & Analysis: More than managing dizzying amounts of data faster and cheaper; it is about making better business decisions

4.     Private Cloud: Due to security and regulatory concerns, larger enterprises have been primarily operating in a trial mode of private/hybrid clouds and this will change in 2013. Consumers of IT are demanding greater value from IT services

5.     Enterprise Social Networking: Becoming a core tool for the new social workforce; the key insight for organizations succeeding in building value from this technology is social business processes redesign

6.     Digital Delivery of Products & Services: Customers are driving companies of all shapes and sizes to develop new, technology-based ways of delivering value.  Digital delivery of products and services can open tremendous new pathways for growth, but companies must shift their underlying business operations to support this new business model

7.     Public Cloud Infrastructure: Cloud adoption will continue to mature with hybrid cloud architecture becoming the mainstay as companies of all sizes leverage public cloud services

8.     Data Visualization: Leading edge companies will explore dynamic virtualization techniques and advanced display devices to navigate through multiple dimensions of data

9.     Simulation & Scenario Modeling: Organizations are increasingly focusing on simulation models that enable executives to envision the potential impact of their choices before making investments

10.  Gamification: With its combination of game mechanics, social networking, interactive media and behavioral analytics, gamification can transform a business

More information on Technology Trends can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

Survey of More Than 2,000 CIOs Shows Digital Technologies Are Top Priorities in 2013

Enterprises realize on average only 43 percent of technology's business potential, according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.'s Executive Programs. That number has to grow for IT to remain relevant in an increasingly digital world. 

The worldwide survey was conducted in the fourth quarter in 2012 and included 2,053 CIOs, representing more than $230 billion in CIO IT budgets and covering 36 industries in 41 countries. The Gartner Executive Programs report, "Hunting and Harvesting in a Digital World: The 2013 CIO Agenda," represents the world's most comprehensive examination of business priorities and CIO strategies. 

Over the last 18 months, digital technologies — including mobile, analytics, big data, social and cloud — have reached a tipping point with business executives. Analysts said there is no choice but to increase technology's potential in the enterprise, and this means evolving IT's strategies, priorities and plans beyond tending to the usual concerns as CIOs expect their 2013 IT budgets to be essentially flat for the fifth straight year. 

The survey showed that CIO IT budgets have been flat to negative ever since the dot-com bust of 2002. For 2013, CIO IT budgets are projected to be slightly down, with a weighted global average decline of 0.5 percent. 

Digital technologies dominate CIO technology priorities for 2013. The top 10 global technology priorities revealed by the survey reflect a greater emphasis on externally oriented digital technologies, as opposed to traditional IT/operationally oriented systems. 

CIOs see these technologies as disrupting business fundamentally over the next 10 years. When asked which digital technologies would be most disruptive, 70 percent of CIOs cited mobile technologies, followed by big data/analytics at 55 percent, social media at 54 percent and public cloud at 51 percent. The disruptiveness of each of these technologies is real, but CIOs see their greatest disruptive power coming in combination, rather than in isolation. 

As needs and opportunities evolve, more CIOs will find themselves leading in areas outside of traditional IT. In addition to their tending role, they are starting to assume responsibility for hunting for digital opportunities and harvesting value. Sixty-seven percent of CIOs surveyed have significant leadership responsibilities outside of IT, with only 33 percent having no other such responsibilities. This situation contrasts sharply with 2008, when almost half of CIOs had no responsibilities outside of IT. Almost a fifth of CIOs now act as their enterprise's chief digital officer (CDO), leading digital commerce and channels. Although this nascent role varies in scope and style, it normally includes championing the digital vision for the business -- that is, ensuring that the business is evolving optimally in the new digital context. 

More information on IT, service and support can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

2013 Research: Mobile Customer Service Strategy Results Released

The International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) has released its 2013 research report, A Mobile Customer Service Strategy: The Contact Center, the Agent, and the Challenges of Implementation, including key findings and study results.

The study results were collected from a late 2012 online survey to 422 customer service professionals. Worldwide participants from various industries and all levels of the contact center answered questions pertaining to their Mobile Customer Service Strategy. The research shows that contact centers recognize the importance of providing mobile customer service directly from the device, but that they aren’t always sure how to implement. Those contact centers that get involved early in the planning and support of the Mobile Customer Service Strategy will have the best opportunity to provide the desired customer experience.

The argument for mobile customer service is strong, and a solid plan is imperative to a successful implementation. When built correctly, a Mobile Customer Service Strategy will provide lasting benefits to the company, and the contact center. The key benefits that contact center leaders can expect to gain will extend far beyond 2013.

A few  key findings from the research study include:

-- Over 43% say their company knows mobile customer service is a priority

-- 68% say it improves their user experience

-- Almost 62% think it’s a competitive differentiator

-- 44% are in the planning stages

-- Only 25% report actually having a mobile customer service strategy for 2013

More information on customer service and support research can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

Companies Are Not Communicating Their BYOD Policies To Employees

GLOBO, an international provider of mobile, telecom and e-business software products and services, released survey results which found IT departments are not making employees aware of their BYOD policies. In the survey, 68 percent of respondents said they use their personal devices for work, while only 29 percent said that their company actually has a BYOD policy in place. Furthermore, 42 percent of respondents don't know if their company's BYOD policy allows IT to have full access to their personal devices.

These findings show a significant lack of communication between companies and their employees with respect to BYOD, an issue that must be addressed.

Other key findings include:

-- 14 percent reported that they don't know if their company currently has a BYOD policy.

-- 91 percent responded that they do not know if their company plans to implement a BYOD policy.

-- If IT clearly stated that they have access to their employee's personal information such as emails and contacts, 93 percent of respondents said that they would not participate in a BYOD program.

-- 69 percent said that they would not consider breaking a company policy in regards to BYOD even if they knew that they would not get caught.

-- People using a personal device for work say that they are using it first and foremost to check emails (62 percent).

More information on IT, service and support can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

Slight growth In Global Tech Market In '13, Bigger Rebound In '14

In its latest global tech marketforecast, Forrester is forecasting 5.4% growth (local currencies) in global tech spending in 2013 — but, notes analyst Andrew Bartels, the year will be better than it looks from the headline. Aside from Europe, which will grow minimally in 2013 as it continues to rebound from its recession, other geographies will grow: the United States by 7.5% and Asia Pacific by 4%. In Latin America and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, tech buying will increase by 9% over the next two years.

Forrester contends that a lot of the economic instability affecting markets today — such as the fiscal cliff, the European recession, and the leadership transition in China — will be in the past and that firms should look at 2013 as transition year before increasing spending in 2014 when spending will grow to 6.7% globally.

The tech market is being transformed by mobility, cloud computing, and smart computing, which are highly desired because of their transformative potential. Once the economic squeeze on IT budgets ends, the pent-up demand for new technologies will surface and drive the growth in tech spending. That will be the story of 2013 and 2014.

One product category that continues to stall is computer hardware. PC vendors had a lousy 2012, with zero growth in total, and server vendors did even worse, with a 4% decline. Weakness will persist in 2013, with purchases of both servers and storage declining and peripherals slowing to 3%. The 4% growth in PCs in 2013 looks more promising, but that is mostly due to growth in tablets, which Forrester counts in the broader PC category.

One hardware vendor continues to buck this trend: Apple. Forrester estimates that Apple will sell $7 billion of Macs and $11 billion of iPads to the corporate market in 2013, and $8 billion in Macs and $13 billion of iPads in 2014. Global corporate spending on Wintel PCs and tablets was down by 4% in 2012 and will be flat in 2013 as firms slowly replace their old Windows PCs with Windows 8 devices. Finally, in 2014, increased PC demand and improved Windows 8 devices will lead to a strong 8% increase of these products, but that growth will still be less than the double-digit growth for Linux, Android, and Apple products.

More information on the technology industry can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com

Worldwide IT Spending Forecast to Reach $3.7 Trillion in 2013

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.7 trillion in 2013, a 4.2 percent increase from 2012 spending of $3.6 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. The 2013 outlook for IT spending growth in U.S. dollars has been revised upward from 3.8 percent in the 3Q12 forecast.

Gartner analysts said much of this spending increase is the result from projected gains in the value of foreign currencies versus the dollar. When measured in constant dollars, 2013 spending growth is forecast to be 3.9 percent.

The Gartner Worldwide IT Spending Forecast is the leading indicator of major technology trends across the hardware, software, IT services and telecom markets. For more than a decade, global IT and business executives have been using these highly anticipated quarterly reports to recognize market opportunities and challenges, and base their critical business decisions on proven methodologies rather than guesswork. 

Worldwide devices spending which includes PCs, tablets, mobile phones and printers, is forecast to reach $666 billion in 2013, up 6.3 percent from 2012. However, this is a significant reduction in the outlook for 2013 compared with Gartner's previous forecast of $706 billion in worldwide devices and 7.9 percent growth. The long-term forecast for worldwide spending on devices has been reduced as well, with growth from 2012 through 2016 now expected to average 4.5 percent annually in current U.S. dollars (down from 6.4 percent) and 5.1 percent annually in constant dollars (down from 7.4 percent). These reductions reflect a sharp reduction in the forecast growth in spending on PCs and tablets that is only partially offset by marginal increases in forecast growth in spending on mobile phones and printers. 

Worldwide enterprise software spending is forecast to total $296 billion in 2013, a 6.4 percent increase from 2012. This segment will be driven by key markets such as security, storage management and customer relationship management; however, beginning in 2014, markets aligned to big data and other information management initiatives, such as enterprise content management, data integration tools, and data quality tools will begin to see increased levels of investment. 

The global telecom services market continues to be the largest IT spending market. Gartner analysts predict that growth will be predominately flat over the next several years as revenue from mobile data services compensates for the declines in total spending for both the fixed and mobile voice services markets. By 2016, Gartner forecasts that mobile data will represent 33 percent of the total telecom services market, up from 22 percent in 2012. 

More information on IT spending can be found at www.SupportIndustry.com