July 31, 2018
Workplace 2020
It is largely agreed that the rise of the new generation of connected workers, empowered by collaborative and mobile solutions, will radically alter the shape of the future workforce and workplace. We decided to look further at this thinking by conducting some original cross-industry research that measures digitalisation, working behaviours and readiness for the future. For this study we teamed up with Raconteur and surveyed 150 C-suite individuals from leading organisations in the UK representing a wide range of business sectors and sizes.
What we found is that there are varying ranges of digital maturity today, and similarly alternative opinions on digital readiness for the future. The time is in fact ‘now’ for many with industries such as retail already leading the charge and seeing real return and business change on the back of significant investment in digital technologies.
Inevitably some other industries, such as financial and professional services, are slower off the mark, held back by a historic lack of technology innovation or industry regulatory constraints. Within manufacturing, while it was determined that it was the least digitally mature sector, there is real appetite to better capitalise on the obvious potential gains here. Motivations for moving to the cloud are too evolving. While there is still a clear cost saving rationale, collaboration, responsiveness and agility are commonly now seen as key drivers.
With flexible working set to become the ‘normal’ in the future workplace, the rise of the mobile worker has been widely debated. Empowering this phenomenon is set to soon become a critical priority for organisations of all sizes. 48% of respondents are today unable to access all the information they need via mobile devices, with 6% either poorly connected or not connected at all. In an age when people are used to a high level of connectivity in their private lives, it is only to be expected that this too should translate to their working world. Organisations who are unable to cater to the needs of the connected generation in future will struggle to attract the best talent.
Mobile will be at the heart of the new workplace; and a mobile 1st cloud 1st reality is here and now.
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