Latest Reports

• Disaster Recovery Plan Testing: A Formal but Inconsistent Practice

  In today’s unpredictable business environment, there is an increasing reliance on data and digital systems to operate efficiently. With this comes the need for robust disaster recovery (DR) plans and testing to reduce the impact of unforeseen events. The effectiveness of a DR plan can only be truly validated through routine testing. However, while this practice is growing, few organizations are testing their DR plans formally and consistently. This Research Byte summarizes our full report on disaster recovery plan testing as a best practice.

  January, 2024

• Click with Caution: Why Every Company Needs to Enforce Personal Use Policies

  Policies for personal use of IT resources are policies that explicitly restrict or permit use of the organization’s IT resources for personal reasons. The good news is that 90% of survey respondents have adopted personal-use policies, at various levels of commitment. However, despite high adoption, not all companies consistently and formally practice them. This Research Byte summarizes our full report on policies for personal use as a best practice.

  January, 2024

• Rightsizing ERP Support Staffing

  Rightsizing the support staff for an ERP system can be difficult. This is because many factors affect the support staffing ratio. These include the type of ERP system, its age, the extent of modification, and the industry sector. Nevertheless, understanding support requirements for ERP systems is vital for IT leaders. This research byte summarizes our full report on ERP support staffing ratios.

  January, 2024

• SAP S/4HANA: Reducing Time to Market Through Industry-Specific Solutions and Generative AI Capabilities

  Migrating to SAP S/4HANA presents a challenge for enterprises encompassing multiple business processes across the value chain, intricate data structures, and several customizations. Current macroeconomic headwinds have made this transition more complex as customers reassess their SAP S/4HANA implementation strategies to develop a cost-optimal road map and seek quick ROI on their IT investments. Service providers are also addressing these trends, reducing time to market for clients through industry-specific solutions with preconfigured process workflows. They have also invested in generative AI solutions to strengthen horizontal capabilities, such as testing and documentation.

  January, 2024

• Striking a Balance with Low-Code/No-Code Platforms

  Low-Code/No-Code (LC/NC) platforms are becoming increasingly popular in enterprise software development. They enable non-technical users and citizen developers to quickly create software applications with little to no manual coding. However, LC/NC tools are not just meant for personnel outside of the IT organization. They are also incredibly useful for professional developers. This Research Byte is a summary of our full report, which covers LC/NC adoption and investment trends along with the economic experience and overall satisfaction rates for LC/NC platforms.

  January, 2024

• Generative AI Commands C-Suite Leadership

  In this, our first survey-based report on generative AI strategy, spending, and adoption, we provide metrics on how much enterprises are spending on this ground-breaking technology, where they are spending it, and how they are governing it. Given the hype, it is not surprising that our survey respondents rank generative AI as strategically important to their organizations. In fact, it is so important that the C-suite is typically leading the effort. This research byte is a brief description of some of the findings of our eight-chapter report on Generative AI Strategy, Spending, and Adoption Metrics.

  January, 2024

• Generative AI: A Key Enabler of Personalized and Intelligent CX

  Generative AI is poised to transform customer-facing functions, including marketing, sales, commerce, and customer service. This research byte explores the enterprise applications and use cases of generative AI within the customer experience (CX) landscape, from automating content creation, personalizing product recommendations, and analyzing customer feedback to self-service automation. It also highlights how generative AI can significantly boost personalization and drive intelligent CX. Finally, it lays out key considerations for enterprises when adopting generative AI in their CX endeavors, including the need for unified customer data, external partners to speed up implementations, and ensuring content quality and data access control.

  December, 2023

• Dare to Compare: Getting Value from IT Spending Benchmarks

  Benchmarking is the key to measuring an organization’s IT budget against industry peers. Whether the goal is to compare the organization’s IT spending levels, defend current spending levels, justify new spending requests, or find opportunities for cost reduction, benchmarking is an effective way for IT executives to optimize their IT budgets and better focus their efforts to achieve a state of continuous improvement. This Research Byte summarizes the full report, Best Practices for Benchmarking Your IT Budget Ratios.

  December, 2023

• Generative AI Shifting the Paradigm for Business and Data Analytics

  With the rise of generative AI, enterprises are entering a new paradigm when it comes to business and data analytics, and it is poised to bring challenges. Business and data analytics continues to grow, but the satisfaction level is only moderate. As data analytics are only going to get more complicated with Gen AI, it is important to meet the challenges of data analytics head-on. This Research Byte discusses these challenges and summarizes our full report on business and data analytics technologies.

  December, 2023

• IT Wages to Rise 3.0% at the Median in 2024, Salary Study Finds

  Despite lingering questions about the economy, unemployment remains at low levels and inflation is coming under control. We anticipate modest upward pressure on IT personnel wages in 2024. Overall, our IT Salary Report 2024 anticipates that average wages for IT workers will rise 3.0% in 2024. This is lower than the 4.0% we projected the past two years, but it still shows a strong IT job market, especially considering a fair number of high-profile layoffs in the tech industry earlier in 2023.

  December, 2023

• Blockchain Services: Charting the Path to New Opportunities in Blockchain

  Over the past two years, enterprise adoption of blockchain services has increased gradually, with more projects moving to the production stage. Financial services lead this trend due to the increased traction for use cases such as cross-border payments and trade finance, P2P transactions, and asset tokenization; however, challenges persist, hindering mass adoption. In addition, the application of blockchain to drive sustainability initiatives has emerged as a new lever to enhance trust and transparency. To tap into emerging use cases and address the developments above, service providers emphasize inorganic expansion and asset development. Both demand- and supply-side trends are covered in Avasant’s Blockchain Services 2023–2024 Market Insights™ and Blockchain Services 2023–2024 RadarView™, respectively.

  December, 2023

• Moving from Traditional Recruitment to Tech-enabled Talent Acquisition

  Global economic challenges, the Great Resignation, and remote work drive a shift from traditional recruiting to talent acquisition. This transition, marked by reduced recruitment budgets and increased costs, is further fueled by a growing emphasis on skill-based hiring. As enterprises encounter obstacles in recruitment transformation, they are steering away from conventional recruitment agencies, opting for end-to-end talent acquisition partners. This led to an 11%–16% growth in talent acquisition outsourcing from March 2022 to March 2023 and a 23.9% growth in service provider revenue YOY. Both demand-side and supply-side trends are covered in our Talent Acquisition Business Process Transformation 2023–2024 Market Insights™ and Talent Acquisition Business Process Transformation 2023–2024 RadarView™, respectively.

  December, 2023