Is workplace tech being used? Digital skills are key
With a recession looming, that’s a lot of potential spending waste. So here’s what can be done.
Why You Should Care
With an uncertain economic outlook, leadership eyes will be on budgets.
Knowing what is essential tech, and what can be cut, will be key.
During the pandemic, with work-from-home mandates enforced for the first time, it seemed like digital transformation and adoption were on an unstoppable upward trend.
Indeed, in early 2020 Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that with the tech giant’s Teams application rocketing to more than 75 million daily users — it now has 270 million — it was as if the world of business was going through a record-breaking digital transformation.
As he said at the time: “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”
However, Nexthink’s IT’s Big, Expensive, Software Experience Problems report (completed in conjunction with Gartner and surveying 200 IT executives in North America and EMEA) has found a problem: only 5% of IT decision-makers know if employees are using the software and tools the company is spending increasing money on.
Employer software problems
With Gartner projecting that global IT spending by businesses will grow again from 2022 to 2023 — spending increased by over 10% from 2021 to 2022 and by 0.8% from 2022 to 2023 — Nexthink’s findings could present an expenditure issue for employers at a time when finances are becoming uncertain.
“This creates a lot of spending waste on unused licenses. Software licenses can easily eat large portions of an IT budget unnecessarily, which is why IT needs the visibility to see this and take appropriate action,” explained Yassine Zaied, chief strategy and marketing officer at Nexthink
Indeed, the digital employee experience management company’s report found that 22% of IT leaders claim that IT spending is their most pressing issue, followed by 13% who believe the use of unapproved apps and services is.
There is also the issue of productivity. Whilst 85% of IT leaders want to cut or optimize their software licenses with little clarity over what is used many are concerned about the impact on employee productivity.
In fact, only 6% of IT leaders feel comfortable consolidating hardware and software licenses whilst also being able to improve productivity.
Data and digital adoption: the answer?
Yet, getting better data on digital adoption and from the software systems being used could help solve this problem — whilst also benefitting the bottom line.
Indeed, in a recent UNLEASH and AppLearn report on digital adoption, it was found that an increase in the collection of software data can benefit income, efficiency, and decision-making.
As Raju Vijay, vice president of global people services at Nissan explains from his experience at the car manufacturer: “We’ve set the stage for a different way of thinking which is data and insight-driven.”
Something that will be incredibly useful if budgets are cut and HR and IT need to make decisions on what technology they need to keep and what needs to be cut.
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Multiple award-winning journalist, editor and content strategist
Dan is an award-winning HR journalist and editor with over five years experience in the HR space.
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