GoTo has released its IT Priorities: 2023 Report. The survey conducted by Frost & Sullivan, commissioned by GoTo delves into the current state of IT priorities for small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) and evaluatesthe global trends of 1,000 IT decision-makers at companies with less than 1,000 employees. The IT decision-makers include Business Owners, Managing Directors, Sr IT Professionals, Sr Finance, Admin and Operations positions. In India, the survey uncovered three main IT priorities for SMEs which include growing revenue (31%), launching new products/services quickly (30%) and increasing customer satisfaction (29%).
As economic uncertainty, reprioritized budgets, and overburdened resources continue to be the norm, IT decision-makers are faced with determining the right set of goals and objectives to maximise their investment, grow their business, and streamline their processes. On a global scale, the survey revealed that IT decision makers are looking to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. While in India, the survey uncovered four main business objectives shared by IT decision-makers to ensure their organisation’s success and support for their employees and customers. These top objectives include growing revenue, improving operational efficiencies, reducing costs, and increasing customer satisfaction. The key trends uncovered in this survey will allow teams to reach these objectives.
Key IT Trends in India for SMEs in 2023:
- Hybrid work is still the preferred way to work: 48% of the knowledge-based employees in India are working from physical locations (offices), while 37% continue to work on a hybrid basis. Similarly, the top management of the organisations also feel the same with 45% preferring to work from the office and 39% preferring the hybrid work model. The global data depicts a similar story and hybrid work remains the gold standard with half the respondents splitting their time between home and the office. Year-over-year results show a decrease of 10% in the number of businesses that have official rules on the number of days an employee needs to be in the office, meaning that employees have more flexibility now than ever.
- Consolidation for enhanced productivity and cost savings: The need for consolidation has emerged a top requisite for SMEs in India, followed by UK, USA & Canada, and Australia. 90%of SMEs in India consider consolidation of communication, collaboration, and IT management and support tools as an important initiative for the year. The top reasons behind consolidation of IT tools include increasing productivity, making IT management efficient and easy and then for cost savings. In fact, 41% of businesses globally are planning to switch technology vendors to reduce costs. 93% of them have either completed, planned, or are in process with these consolidation efforts.
- With choice comes responsibility: With an increase in tasks and ensuing challenges in the current working model, 89% of the Indian IT decision-makers believe that their IT workload was significantly higher in 2022 as compared to 2021. Nearly half (48%) business leaders globally, including India said it was very important to consider reducing the burden on IT when choosing new software, compared to only 35% last year. 68% of these leaders say they are more involved in the purchase process of products and tools than they were a year ago.
- Support IT teams with better IT support tools: 45% of SMEs in India reported using IT Help Desk System every day. Around 22% agree that IT Help Desk System has the highest impact on employee productivity, followed by collaboration solutions and project management software as secondary factors. Globally, 65% of organisations saw an increase in the IT workload last year. 92% of these respondents said they want to reduce the burden on IT through the right software choice. 40% of enterprises also agreed that their reason for digital tool upgrades and change was highly driven by their IT teams’ preference.
- Find new ways to prioritise the customer: Indian business leaders said that expansion of customer base is one of the topmost business priorities. However, 82% feel that there is a serious gap between customer engagement and experience platforms in the market designed specifically for SMEs. Compared to 2021, 89% of the Indian businesses witnessed an increased investment in customer experience (CX) technology. Furthermore, from a global standpoint, the survey unveiled that 66% of respondents plan to spend more on customer experience technology in 2023 than they did in 2022.
- Partners play a key role in decision-making: 44% of businesses globally choose a partner versus 27% going to the solution provider directly to find new business communication and IT support tools. The survey saw a 55% increase in the usage of partners in the past year.
“SME’s power our economy and the report provides an optimistic view of the industry’s investment in technology at the core of every business operation.2023 is shaping up to be a year of IT consolidation, customer-centricity, and thoughtful technology investment. We are encouraged to see the positive outlook among Indian SMEs as they continue to invest in IT tools and embrace modern flexible technology and its potential to drive sustained business growth. IT tools can unlock simplification and efficiency in business processes and GoTo has always been at the forefront of designing and delivering greater customer excellence with its robust and flexible IT support tools. We aim to work closely with our channel partners and Global System Integrators (GSIs) to enable our customers to utilise the efficiencies of IT tools and become the powerhouses driving the economy,” says Triveni Rabindraraj, Head of Sales, India, GoTo.
The survey was conducted across the geographies of India, USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, Germany, and France.