The modern workforce, part II: new tools change IT

1. Summary

This report is the second in a series of three that analyzes the results of two global surveys: one of the vanguard of the modern workforce (workers ages 18 to 34) and one of IT decision-makers. Sponsored by Adobe, this Gigaom Research study aims to help tech buyers and IT executives better understand:

• What the modern workforce thinks it needs to succeed in this rapidly changing world of mobile-first communications and new work-collaboration technologies
• How IT is supporting those needs and overall corporate objectives
• If there are gaps between worker expectations and IT requirements and how technology buyers can address them

Gigaom Research’s objective is to give technology decision-makers better insight into how their workforce is evolving so they can be more successful and better align people and technologies with corporate objectives. In this report, we focus on the role of IT in supporting the need for business agility and pace. Key findings in this report, which focuses on IT departments, include these:

• Increased business agility can come from technologies that influence work tempo and whose form factors shape the way that work is accomplished; the best tools are those that have a design that suits what is being done, without distracting us from the work itself.
• As a result, businesses gain advantage by speeding up new tool adoption so the workforce has a range of work tools that match different sorts of work activities and interactions. Tools like file sync-and-share and cloud enterprise apps are up more than 30 percent compared to only a few years ago.
• The role of IT is shifting toward creating a technology landscape in which productivity and innovation flourish. This means retooling IT to promote the adoption of internal and external collaboration.
• Our surveys suggest that IT is largely in step with these goals and is putting concepts such as user experience at the forefront of their efforts (43 percent say it is very important), which is a big step forward, while still balancing that with a focus on security (57 percent say it is very important).

Thumbnail image courtesy of Digital Vision/Thinkstock.