Are You Missing the Tech Train?

Whether it’s business innovation, employee engagement or everyday productivity, technology promises to do it all. But amidst the limitless possibilities, leaders can find themselves uncertain on the benefits of certain technologies, how to focus their investments and how to get their people on board with change.

That’s why we’ve published ‘Are You Missing the Tech Train?’ - to shed light on which countries and sectors are accelerating ahead of others when it comes to tech and to deliver advice for leaders who come up against transformation barriers.

The report presents the findings of a global survey that collected responses from more than 600 leaders from China, France, Germany, India, the UK, and the US. Leaders were asked – among other matters - about the investments they were making, the benefits they expect and what typically slows implementation and investment. The five technologies in question were:

Illustrated with insight from Mazars experts, the report lifts the lid on the countries proving most familiar with the technologies and those most eager to invest and implement. It also uncovers which countries are falling behind, while offering practical advice to the C-suite determined to get more out of technology in the workplace.

Comparing countries, sectors and organisation sizes, the survey revealed:

• Leaders in China are the most familiar with the five technologies, followed (in order) by Germany, India, the US, France and lastly the UK.
• Artificial Intelligence is the technology most people feel familiar.
• China and India are the most likely to have implemented at least one of the technologies; France and the UK are the least likely.
• ERP is the most implemented technology.
• Tech adoption lags in the public sector - 50% of respondents working in the public sector said ‘nothing is happening’ with the five technologies.
• More than half of respondents already spend over 25% of their IT budgets on a combination of the five technologies.
• India is the country where respondents have the greatest appetite for increasing their budgets for the five technologies, while France and the UK spend the least of their IT budgets on the five technologies.
• Cost savings, business model transformation and improvements in quality were the top three expected benefits of the five technologies.
• Necessary investment resources, talent and skills, and market maturity were the top three barriers to increasing technological investment.

Liam McKenna, Consulting Partner and Head of RPA at Mazars Ireland, comments: “The findings show that India and China are ahead of some of our closer neighbours, such as the UK and France. We see Ireland in a similar position to these close neighbors with awareness growing but many organisations still only educating themselves on the technology and the opportunities. There are questions as to how quickly these Irish organisations will move from education to implementation. With significant uncertainty in the economy at the moment, the risk remains that Irish organisations will fall behind our international competitors through delaying the education and subsequently implementation period for these transformational technologies.”