Several interesting pieces of research were published this week. They included a study by Salesforce that looked at the skills required in the workplace now and in 2030. The report contained details from two surveys, one from adults and one from 13-18 years old, and delivered some interesting insights.
Kantata published a whitepaper written by Enterprise Times titled “How To Tell If Your Professional Services Organization Is Flagging.” Pearson, an international learning company, finds that despite new technologies transforming the world of work, the top five most in-demand skills today are human skills. Checkout.com’s report, The Global Retailers Handbook, suggests retailers need to analyse and optimise every aspect of their eCommerce experience.
Accenture
Accenture published a report titled Value Untangled: Accelerating radical growth through interoperability. The report was based on a survey of 4,000 C-suite executives across 19 industries in 23 countries. It found that organisations leveraging high interoperability grew six times faster than their peers with low interoperability. Only 34% of organisations have achieved a high level of interoperability.
Interoperability manifests itself through the ability to share data, deliver transparency and have common applications across the organisation. Emma McGuigan, senior managing director and Enterprise & Industry Technologies lead at Accenture, commented, “While the concept of interoperability isn’t new, the technology to make it possible in a timely and cost-effective way is finally putting it within reach for most enterprises. To compress transformation from years to months, or even days, everything must be integrated and interoperable. One in three companies have prioritized this level of agility and are untangling value to race past their competitors in revenue growth, efficiency and resiliency by using interoperability to spark total enterprise reinvention.”
The report highlights the advantages of interoperability and highlights three actions for organisations.
- Leverage the cloud – Cloud is now ubiquitous. Companies can improve their interoperability by moving existing applications to the cloud and investing in new, cloud-based enterprise applications. More importantly, it connects data and experiences across applications to create one version of the truth.
- Utilize composable tech – Using proven, repeatable solutions that can be configured and reconfigured at speed to address changing business needs, known as composable technology, builds flexibility into the heart of organizations.
- Focus on meaningful collaboration– Interoperability can enable meaningful collaboration by allowing functions and people to work together seamlessly toward a common goal. They can use real-time data, analytics and AI, together with new ways of working, to unlock the value of technology, empower people and achieve better outcomes.
Analytic Partners
Analytic partners released its latest ROI Genome Insight Report, “The Marketer’s Guide to Survive (Even Thrive) in 2023”. It highlights that brand messaging and upper funnel marketing directly drive 30% of paid search. Another 30-60% is driven by non-marketing factors such as seasonality, loyalty, or category trends.
Key findings include the following:
- Cap performance marketing spend at no more than 50% so that at least half goes to brand and other upper funnel marketing activities.
- Capitalize on the power of targeting – nearly 75% of sales generated by marketing come through media channels that enable a targeted approach.
- Take an omnichannel approach – spending on connected TV (CTV) has reaped a 30% stronger return on investment than other advertising spend.
- Invest in every customer touchpoint to track real-time data and make truly informed business decisions.
Nancy Smith, President & CEO at Analytic Partners, commented, “As we enter a new year of economic uncertainty, consumers are feeling the pressure on their purchasing power, while marketing teams are facing increasing demands to reduce spend. Yet, this decision to cut can incur a 15% loss of business for companies that reduce marketing budgets when their competitors do not. Achieving success in 2023 will require brands to channel resources toward marketing activities that emphasize brand marketing and measurement of omnichannel touchpoints that lead to long-term impact.”
Celigo
Celigo revealed the results of a Forrester Consulting, Total Economic Impact report of its integration platform. Forrester discovered that a composite organization experiences benefits of $820,000 over three years versus costs of $176,000, totalling a net present value (NPV) of $643,000 and an ROI of 364%.
Key findings from the report included:
- The low-code environment allows IT staff, to reduce development timelines for integrations and flow projects by up to 75%, saving the composite organization $463,100 over the three years.
- The centralized view into the status of all integrations and flows throughout the enterprise reduced error resolution time by 90%, halved the total number of data errors and resulted in a cost reduction of $135,500 to resolve data errors over three years.
- The return of more than 100 hours of employee time typically spent on manual, repetitive, and data-based tasks, saving the composite organization $221,100 over three years.
Jan Arendtz, founder and CEO of Celigo, commented, “Businesses need to take a holistic approach to automation. As I believe this Forrester study demonstrates, Celigo provides meaningful returns to modern enterprises that are looking for increased productivity, greater visibility, and shorter development cycles– all within a single platform that serves both technical and business users.”
SD Worx
SD Worx looked at how annual salary indexes in Belgium are set to jump in December and January. Jean-Luc Vannieuwenhuyse, legal expert, SD Worx, commented, “Most sectors, which are indexed annually in January (such as the CP 200), are forecasting increases of more than 10%. We won’t know the final index figure until the end of December, but it looks like it’s likely to be three times higher than last year’s (which was 3.58%).”
To evidence this, Vannieuwenhuyse added, “For workers in the food industry (CP 118) and their employees (CP 220), the figure for January is already known: 10.96%. This is also the case for the hospitality sector (CP 302) [1], where wages will increase by 10.964%. Road transport personnel for third parties (CP 140.03) will also be indexed by 10.96% on the basic salary.”
SD Worx expects an increase of 11.13% in employee wages (CP 200) in January as the cost of living crisis impacts pricing, wages and firms.
TechnologyOne
TechnologyOne explored data from its 2022 Local Government Digital Transformation Index. It found that the proportion of Australian councils with a defined SaaS migration strategy almost tripled from 13% to 37% in a year.
Jonathan Throssell, president of LG Professionals Australia, said, “In the wake of the sudden digital acceleration prompted by the pandemic, customer expectations and community demand also evolved to be digital-first. Now that digital services are becoming the norm, councils are looking to capitalise on the momentum and digitise even more of their operations.”
Even as councils explore and aim to deploy digital transformation strategies, there are concerns about funding pressures and staffing. To address the latter, TechnologyOne sees partnerships and dedicated digital transformation leadership as a must-have.
Throssell added, “While most council leaders understand the importance of digital transformation, the reality is that adequate funding, resources, and skilled talent are not easy to procure. As the scope of their digital transformation grows, the lack of a dedicated digital leader within the council to manage the complexity of transformation is also being felt more acutely.
“Without a digital leader or transformation partner, councils may forge ahead without a well-considered digital strategy, which could lead to inefficient spending, cost blowouts and sub-par delivery outcomes. In addition, councils miss out on the ability to derive data-backed insights on community needs and improve their responses to the community.”
UKG
The UKG Workforce Activity Report for November showed the retail sector (+1.9%) buoyed an increase in the total number of shifts worked by people at U.S. businesses for just the second time this year. November shift volume increased 0.3% over October 2022. However, the total number of shifts worked in the retail sector on Black Friday 2022 declined by 5% compared with 2021.
Dave Gilbertson, vice president of UKG, said, “Although Black Friday retail foot traffic was up slightly this year, with consumers spending more overall, the growth in revenue was driven entirely by inflation. Employees actually worked 5% fewer shifts than last year. This reinforces the relatively smooth, though persistent, slight declines in workforce activity we have seen across industries throughout 2022. While the labor shortage is showing early signs of slight easing, a ‘soft landing’ for the labor market continues to be in play.”
Xero
In a new survey of Australian small businesses, Xero discovered that 55.3% of businesses are concerned they will not hit their summer sales targets. 28.1% will struggle to hit targets because of the increased cost of supplies and equipment.
Will Buckley, country manager Australia, Xero, said, “While most Aussies know the importance of shopping small over summer, these results – and the stories we hear from small businesses – reinforce just how important it is for us to support our local economies at a critical time of year.
“We’re all feeling the effects of the increased cost of living, the summer holiday period is a valuable way to choose to spend time – and money – on small businesses who have had a turbulent few years.”
The report also looks at the importance of small businesses in the wider local community. Over a third of organisations donate to local communities, and 30% sponsor local sports teams. The report also notes that late payments remain a key issue for small businesses, with over 40% struggling to pay suppliers and even staff on time.
While support from government grants is important, over 75% of surveyed small businesses noted that support with word of mouth or social media is vital to their business.
Buckley concluded, “Supporting small businesses doesn’t always need to be financial; sharing recommendations with your network and taking the time to leave a positive review are small things that have a big impact. Whatever form it takes, our message is to get out there and support the small operators this summer.”
This point is important. No matter what country the small business operates in, support your local businesses by ensuring that people are aware of their services.
Zellis
Research by Zellis has found that 28% of employees find their payslips difficult to understand due to too many acronyms and technical terms. Furthermore, 71% point to at least one factor that makes their payslips hard to understand. 19% struggle to access online portals, partly due to remembering a password used perhaps once a month, if that. The top three reasons that employees find payslips hard to understand are:
- Too many acronyms or terms I don’t understand – 28%
- I don’t know what I am checking. I wouldn’t know if it was right or wrong anyway – 27%
- Looks too complicated,/too much detail – 23%
The full report is titled, Employer’s Guide to Protecting Financial Wellbeing for the Workforce. It offers practical advice to employers on how to support employees effectively.
Ian Hodson, head of reward and deputy director of HR, University of Lincoln, commented, “Financial wellbeing is not something employers can ignore, as we know how intrinsically linked financial health, mental health, and the ability to perform at your best are.
“I have long been a campaigner for making payslips more meaningful. Employees need information and guidance to help with their financial confidence. That’s why, instead of a traditional payslip, all our employees now get a much more informative ‘pay advice’ through one easy-to-use, integrated system.”
Gethin Nadin, chief innovation officer at Zellis, said, “Financial wellbeing is ultimately about three things: having control over the money that comes in and goes out of your bank account, having the financial and emotional resilience to cope with the things that happen in our lives, and how we feel about the role money plays in our lives.”
