Executive Summary

By Pat Nolan, Research Associate David Krebs, Executive Vice President

Tech-led Disruption and Impact on Enterprise Growth

The lightning-quick pace of technology change in the enterprise is something that weighs heavily on decision makers across the spectrum of technological maturity—from Innovators and Early Adopters to Mainstream Adopters and Laggards.In an effort to outline what informs their strategic outlook for both today and the years to come, VDC Research, an enterprise mobile technology market research authority, has engaged with IT decision makers across industry segments in a forward-looking discussion about tech-led disruption and its impact on enterprise growth, mobile workforces and transformation. The methodology for the research supporting this paper includes a survey of North America-based IT stakeholders as well as a series of in-depth interviews with professionals in roles that range from the C-suite to IT manager and technician.

Figure 1: Survey Participant Demographics, North America, n=268

The emergent solutions discussed include Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), cybersecurity, mobile solutions for frontline workers, Managed Mobility Services (MMS), robotic automation and more.Technology adoption segments definitions

Innovators – businesses that are the first to invest in new technologies, often spearheading the vertical-based applications of a given solution that is yet to have proven business cases.

Early Adopters – businesses that typically deploy new technologies early on, but with a more judicious consideration of their proven use cases as defined by Innovators.

Mainstream Adopters – businesses comprised of the more hesitant players that only participate in mass adoption of technologies once well-established.

Laggards – these businesses often fall behind because of their inability to effectively operationalize stable, mobile-forward technologies. For the purposes of this analysis, and so as to not introduce sample size errors, we group Laggards with the Mainstream Adopters.

The benefits of following in the footsteps of Innovators regarding tech adoption and strategy are significant. As shown in Figure 2, these businesses expect a higher mean revenue growth and are much more agile in adapting to change than both Early Adopters and Mainstream Adopters. These leaders have the most confidence in, and operational readiness for, the evolving technology landscape.

Figure 2: Revenue Growth and Transformation Agility by Tech Adoption Segment

One thing is clear, Innovators are leading the way ̶̶ most importantly, in overall revenue growth. With that truth serving as the foundation, this paper presents the data and insights revealed through our research upon the following four pillars.

Key Findings

Technologically-mature organizations highlight the importance of partnerships for disruption readiness.
Frontline mobility and MMS provide a foundation for continued tech success.
IT support capacity and ease-of-use are critical aspects of optimizing deployment.
Data-driven solutions are a pillar of innovation and disruption, but optimization will not come easy.