Big Data, Analytics, and Cloud Drove Enterprise Software Growth in 2012

International Data Corporation (IDC) released the latest results from the WorldwideSemiannual Software Tracker. For 2012, the worldwide software market grew 3.6% year over year reaching a total market size of $342 billion, which was in line with IDC's previous forecast of 3.4% and less than half the growth rate experienced in 2010 and 2011. In that sense, 2012 confirms the beginning of a more conservative growth period. In the middle of this scenario, there are faster growing market segments, such as Data Access, Analysis and Delivery, Collaborative Applications, CRM Applications, Security Software, and System and Network Management Software. Every one of these markets grew in the 6-7% range, about double the rate for enterprise software as a whole.

Three primary segments comprise the total software market in IDC's software taxonomy: Applications; Application Development & Deployment (AD&D); and Systems Infrastructure Software. Among the three primary segments, the AD&D segment, which comprised nearly 24% of total software revenues in 2012, was the fastest growing market with a 4.6% year-over-year growth rate. Growth in the AD&D segment was largely driven by the performance of the Data Access, Analysis, and Delivery and the Structured Data Management secondary markets with 6.0% and 5.9% growth rates, respectively. Business Intelligence and Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) solutions are pushing the growing trend for these markets because of widening Big Data and Analytics adoption. Big data and analytics are also closely tied to the fast growth social business software markets, where the combination of contextual data and the "right" expertise is becoming critical for supporting enterprise decision making and data driven customer experience solutions.

In the Applications primary market segment, which comprised 49% of total software revenue, year-over-year growth for 2012 was 3.3%, which is slightly lower than for software overall. Within this market segment, CRM and Collaborative Applications stood out with year-over-year growth rates near 7%. While the former is driven by the cloud migration trend and the large investments by businesses to deliver a better customer experience to the "social customer", the latter is largely driven by the Enterprise Social Software market, which grew at 24.8% year over year and gained more than 5 points of market share over three years. Mobile, while not a direct enterprise applications driver, is however a contributing factor and driver for businesses moving to newer and more mobile device agnostic enterprise software..

The third primary segment of the software market is System Infrastructure Software, which comprised 27% of total software revenue and grew 3.3% year over year in 2012. The Security Software and System/Network Management Software secondary segments both grew more than 6% year over year as these solutions provide the infrastructure - whether in the cloud or on-premise - to support the 3rd Platform. Although the other two System Infrastructure Software secondary segment (Storage Software and System Software) had flat growth in 2012, the Virtualization sub-segments had double-digit growth rates.

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Email and Co-Workers Among the Biggest Distractions at Work

Just how distracting are unnecessary emails and chatty coworkers in the workplace? A new survey from JiveSoftware, Inc. found nearly four out of every five workers (79 percent) in the U.S. spend time during their workday checking emails when that time could be used towards something more productive. And, more than one-third of workers (36 percent) say the people they work with are their biggest distraction on the job.

Key findings from the survey include:

Time Wasted by American Workers on Email When They Could Be Doing Something More Productive:

-- 79 percent say they waste time checking emails

-- 18 percent spend more than a quarter of their workday checking irrelevant emails.

-- On average, American workers employed full time, part-time or self-employed spend 16 percent of a workday checking irrelevant email.

The Biggest Distractions at Work:

-- 36 percent of employed Americans said coworkers are their biggest distraction at work.

-- 20 percent said email was their biggest distraction during the workday.

-- 19 percent said that meetings are the most distracting during the workday.

Finding Work/Life Balance:

-- Close to half (48 percent) of employed Americans report working when on vacation.

-- Almost one fifth (19 percent) of employed Americans are more overwhelmed by technology at work now compared to five years ago.

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PC Shipments Post the Steepest Decline Ever in a Single Quarter, According to IDC

Worldwide PC shipments totaled 76.3 million units in the first quarter of 2013 (1Q13), down -13.9% compared to the same quarter in 2012 and worse than the forecast decline of -7.7%, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC) WorldwideQuarterly PC Tracker. The extent of the year-on-year contraction marked the worst quarter since IDC began tracking the PC market quarterly in 1994. The results also marked the fourth consecutive quarter of year-on-year shipment declines.

Despite some mild improvement in the economic environment and some new PC models offering Windows 8, PC shipments were down significantly across all regions compared to a year ago. Fading Mini Notebook shipments have taken a big chunk out of the low-end market while tablets and smartphones continue to divert consumer spending. PC industry efforts to offer touch capabilities and ultraslim systems have been hampered by traditional barriers of price and component supply, as well as a weak reception for Windows 8. The PC industry is struggling to identify innovations that differentiate PCs from other products and inspire consumers to buy, and instead is meeting significant resistance to changes perceived as cumbersome or costly.

Regional Highlights

United States – The U.S. market had another dismal quarter in 1Q13, contracting -12.7% year on year, with a drop of -18.3% compared to the fourth quarter of 2012. With total volume falling to 14.2 million, quarterly shipments reached their lowest level since the first quarter of 2006. With this latest figure, the U.S. is now in its tenth consecutive quarter of year-on-year contraction (excluding a brief moment of growth – less than 2% year on year – in 3Q11).

EMEA – As expected, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) remained constrained, posting a stronger double-digit decline than anticipated in the first quarter of 2013. Results fell short of expectations in the consumer segment as softness in demand persisted amid a continued shift to tablets and ongoing budget pressures. Meanwhile, the market response to Windows 8 and touch-enabled devices remained slow, leading to cautious sell-in from most vendors. Shipments in the commercial market remained constrained as predicted, following continued economic pressure and lack of major IT renewals.

Japan – PC shipments were in line with expectations in the first quarter. Some economic improvement is helping to support commercial replacement demand ahead of the scheduled end of support for Windows XP next year. However, consumer shipments remained very weak.

Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) (APeJ) – PC shipments in APeJ declined sharply, dropping a record -12.7% year on year, the first time the region has experienced a double-digit decline. Although much of the earlier Windows 7 stock had cleared, a lukewarm reception toward Windows 8 hampered new shipments. China's inactivity contributed heavily to the decline, as public sector spending continued to be constrained.

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Research Demonstrates Happy Customer Service Agents Positively Impact Customer Experience

LiveOps, Inc., a provider of cloud contact center and customer service solutions, announced the findings of research that provides a holistic view into the state of today’s customer service. LiveOps evaluated the inter-dependency between the agent experience, customer experience and business bottom line. The research revealed four key points that are supported by the data:

1. Happy Agents Equal Happy Customers: 92 percent of consumers surveyed report that a customer service agent’s perceived “happiness” has a direct impact on their customer experience with the brand.

2. Integrating Social Channels on the Agent Desktop Is a Requirement: 85 percent of consumers surveyed feel that how a brand handles issues on their website or on social channels, like Facebook or Twitter, is a good indicator of a brand’s ability to deliver customer satisfaction and quality of support.

3. Most Brands Fail to Provide Consistent Service Across Multiple Channels: 89 percent of consumers surveyed believe it is important to be able to communicate with companies by any channel, including social media, and still receive the same quality and efficiency of response. Furthermore, 61 percent of social media users feel that brands do not effectively communicate with them on these channels.

4. Live Agent Service, Regardless of Channel, Is Preferred Over Self-service: 90 percent of customers surveyed value the ability to communicate with a live person on any channel--voice, email, chat, SMS or social.

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Study Reveals That 83% of Knowledge Workers Lose Time to Document Versioning Issues Each Day

Poor document collaboration practices are very expensive, time-consuming and the source of much frustration, according to Perforce Software, which commissioned an independent survey of business professionals. Conducted online by Harris Interactive, the survey of 1,004 knowledge workers in the United States and United Kingdom shows that document collaboration problems in the workplace are pervasive, frustrating and the cause of costly productivity issues—even when document sharing tools are in place. It also indicates that these issues have far-reaching consequences, including missed business opportunities, damaged reputations and poor impressions on colleagues and customers.

Known by Few, Felt by Most

While less than half (45 percent) of knowledge workers are familiar with the term “version issues,” the survey found that more than four in five (83 percent) lose or waste time each day from these problems.

Issues include:

-- Searching their hard drives or email inboxes for the most up-to-date or correct file (73 percent)

-- Having to wait while someone else finishes working on a document (59 percent)

-- Manually reviewing documents to sort out the changes from one or more contributors (56 percent)

-- Working on a document, only to realize after some time that it was the wrong or outdated file (47 percent)

Interestingly, of the 69 percent of knowledge workers whose companies use a document management or file sharing service, about 9 in 10 still experience document versioning issues (86 percent and 90 percent, respectively), indicating that existing solutions do little to solve these problems.

More Time-Consuming than Spam, More Frustrating than Parking Tickets

The survey found that document versioning issues are productivity killers. They combine (75 percent) to have an impact on productivity for a higher percentage of knowledge workers than:

-- Not having network access (71 percent)

-- Dealing with spam and junk mail (59 percent)

-- Leaving a mobile phone at home (34 percent)

In addition, 81 percent report having worked on the wrong version of a document or spent too much time looking for the right file. Of those, 29 percent stop working on a project altogether or leave work early when they realize all the time they’ve wasted. Other startling responses include:

-- Yell at their computers (33 percent)

-- Think about heading to the nearest bar or pub (21 percent)

-- Throw something (12 percent)

-- Banged their heads against their desks (12 percent)

 

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Worldwide IT Spending on Pace to Reach $3.8 Trillion in 2013

Worldwide IT spending is projected to total $3.8 trillion in 2013, a 4.1 percent increase from 2012 spending of $3.6 trillion, according to the latest forecast by Gartner, Inc. Currency effects are less pronounced this quarter with growth in constant dollars forecast at 4 percent for 2013. 

Worldwide devices spending (which includes PCs, tablets, mobile phones and printers) is forecast to reach $718 billion in 2013, up 7.9 percent from 2012. Despite flat spending on PCs and a modest decline in spending on printers, a short-term boost to spending on premium mobile phones has driven an upward revision in the devices sector growth for 2013 from Gartner's previous forecast of 6.3 percent. 

The outlook for 2013 for data center systems spending is forecast to grow 3.7 percent in 2013, down 0.7 percent from Gartner's previous forecast. This reduction is largely due to cuts to the near-term forecast for spending on external storage and the enterprise in the economically troubled EMEA region.

Worldwide enterprise software spending is forecast to total $297 billion in 2013, a 6.4 percent increase from 2012. Although the growth for this segment remains unchanged from Gartner's previous forecast, this belies significant changes at a market level, as stronger growth expectations for database management systems (DBMS), data integration tools and supply chain management compensate for lower growth expectations for IT operations management and operating systems software.

While the outlook for IT services remains relatively unchanged since last quarter, continued hesitation among buyers is fostering hypercompetition and cost pressure in mature IT outsourcing (ITO) segments and reallocation of budget away from new projects in consulting and implementation. 

The global telecom services market continues to be the largest IT spending market and will remain roughly flat over the new several years, with declining spending on voice services counterbalanced by strong growth in spending on mobile data services. 

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Professionalism in the Workplace Study Results

According to the third annual professionalism poll conducted for the Center for Professional Excellence, professionalism is more prevalent in existing employees than in new hires. Consistently, managers were less likely than the HR respondents to report a lack of professionalism. When managers specified the employee segments that most lack professionalism, they pointed to younger employees. The generation gap in behaviors and expectations discovered in earlier studies continues with this study.

Despite the apparent generation gap, the majority of both managers and HR respondents feel that the definition of what is professional should not be subject to change. The attitude appears to be that young employees should learn to conform to current standards of professionalism rather than the standards being modified in response to larger societal changes.

The predominant qualities associated with professionalism are: interpersonal skills, appearance, communication skills, time management, confidence, being ethical, having a work ethic, and being knowledgeable.

The quality of Interpersonal skills involves several dimensions. It includes etiquette, being courteous, showing others respect, and behavior that is appropriate for the situation. Similarly, time management encompasses being punctual as well as using one’s time efficiently.

The differences that exist between HR and manager respondents are predictable. Managers more often than HR respondents name work ethic (managers, 32.7% vs. HR, 14.2%) and time management (managers, 27.2% vs. HR, 20.8%) as qualities of the professional. Managers are more likely to see these qualities in existing employees than HR professionals are to experience them in the interview process.

The qualities that define being unprofessional tend to be the mirror image of the qualities of the professional. Again, managers name the same qualities as do the HR respondents. The qualities named most often as unprofessional by both types of respondents are: inappropriate appearance, lack of dedication, poor work ethic, sense of entitlement, disrespect, poor communication skills, unfocused, and a poor attitude.

Again, the differences that do exist between HR and manager respondents are understandable. Managers are notably less likely to mention sense of entitlement (managers, 9.1% vs. HR, 22.7%) and communication skills (managers, 11.2% vs. HR, 21.0%). A sense of entitlement is probably more apparent during an employment interview than once the person is hired. Someone with poor communication skills may get no further than an interview.

State of Professionalism

For a sizable percentage of respondents, the state of professionalism in employees has decreased over the past five years. A third of the HR respondents (33.1%) and a fifth of the managers (21.2%) feel this way.

The good news is professionalism has increased for 16.0% of the HR respondents and 27.2% of the managers. This could be one good result of a bad economy. When asked why they believe the presence of professionalism has increased, respondents most often observe that the poor economy and consequent downsizing has increased the pool of applicants from which to choose.

IT Abuses

After two years when nearly 40% of the HR respondents indicated that IT abuses have increased, the percentage feeling this way has increased to 51.8% this year. About a third of the managers (34.3%) report an increase in IT abuses. Comments by the managers suggest that, while this problem encompasses most of the workforce, it is still the younger employees who are most likely to be engaging in this behavior.

The IT problems being witnessed are similar for both HR and manager respondents. The most common abuses are excessive twittering/Facebook (managers, 79.4%; HR, 82.5%), inappropriate use of the Internet (managers, 86.9%; HR, 78.1%), text messaging at inappropriate times (managers, 79.4%; HR, 81.9%), and excessive cell phone usage for personal calls (managers, 64.5%; HR, 65.0%).

Worst Problems in New Employees

Managers were asked about the worst problems they see in new employees once they are hired and working. The four mentioned by a fifth or more of the managers are: lack of urgency in getting a job done (32.6%), a sense of entitlement (27.2%), poor performance coupled with a mediocre work ethic (23.0%), and poor attendance (22.2%). Often cited with the lack of urgency was employees exercising poor time management.

The final set of mistakes examined was activities or shortcomings that can lead to an employee’s dismissal. For both HR professionals (50.7%) and managers (43.6%), the most common factor that causes an employee to be fired relates to attendance. Poor attendance includes being tardy, leaving early, and numerous absences.

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