Several interesting pieces of research were published this week. They included research reports from Enable, Foxit, InterSystems, Oracle and one from Butler University based on data from the Qualtrics Experience Management platform.
Access Group
According to research carried out by Legal Bricks, part of Access Legal, despite predictions that the property market would slump in 2023 due to economic challenges, property-related searches are on the rise. In January, searches for Rightmove increased by 23% compared with November 2022, while Zoopla saw a 49% uptick. Searches from potential property buyers for new build homes, detached homes, and semi-detached homes also saw rises between 20% and 40% in that period.
Mike Connelly, the founder of Legal Bricks and commercial director at Access Legal, said, “Early this year, there was a lot of doom and gloom around the property market outlook for 2023. Yet when we have been talking with our conveyancing customers, many say activity has recovered to pre-pandemic levels after a lull at the end of 2022.
“Our research into typical property-related searches indicates that people in the UK are looking at their own situations and making their own decisions on their next property move without being led too much by the noise around the market. It’s good news for conveyancers who will be hoping spring and beyond is positive for their caseloads.”
ADP
Private sector employment increased by 145,000 jobs in March, and annual pay was up 6.9% year-over-year, according to the March ADP National Employment Report™ produced by the ADP Research Institute® in collaboration with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab (“Stanford Lab”).
Nela Richardson, the chief economist of ADP, commented, “Our March payroll data is one of several signals that the economy is slowing. Employers are pulling back from a year of strong hiring and pay growth, after a three-month plateau, is inching down.”
Ceridian
As it celebrated $1 billion in earned wages delivered by Dayforce Wallet to users since launching in 2020, Ceridian revealed the survey results. It found that on-demand pay is a driver of employee engagement and retention.
- 63% reported a positive impact on their perception of their employer due to on-demand pay.
- Among younger users between the ages of 18 and 29, nearly half (45%) said Dayforce Wallet is why they stay with their current employer.
On Dayforce Wallet specifically,
- 70% said it had made a positive impact on their mental health.
- 81% of Dayforce Wallet users said early access to their earned wages gives them freedom and accessibility.
Melody Brue, Principal Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, commented, “On-demand pay provides flexibility for financially stressed employees, which materially affects organizational productivity, recruitment, and retention. On-demand pay has now been adopted across many industries and pay grades – whether used to make ends meet or provide liquidity faster than a regular pay cycle. With $1B in on-demand wages delivered, Ceridian has emerged as an early leader in the space by proving the appetite for, and adoption of, on-demand pay.”
Enable
Enable, the rebate management platform, released “Overcoming the misalignment driving friction between supply chain partners report.” Key findings from the report indicated a gap between distributors and manufacturers.
Only 10% of distributors report strong alignment between themselves and trading partners. 76% of manufacturers report alignment between them and their trading partners. This is the collaboration gap, where one partner feels more left out than another. However, where alignment is strong, relationships are also strong.
40% of manufacturers review goals monthly, but only 23% of distributors report the same. Around 40% of distributors and buying groups report stronger relationships despite recent supply chain disruptions. However, 60% of manufacturers say their relationships have remained stagnated or weakened. Only 25% of retailers believe their relationships have grown stronger.
Andrew Butt, Founder and CEO of Enable, commented, “We were surprised to learn how siloed data really is between trading partners. Not only are trading partners not working off contracts designed to clearly delineate terms, they’re not communicating as effectively as they think they are. These two issues act as force multipliers when it comes to the friction that naturally exists between companies trying to do business, compounding that friction exponentially.
“Thankfully, collaborating more closely together offers trading partners a means by which they can lower this friction and achieve stronger trading relationships. The data is clear: when trading partners work closely together, they see more success. In the coming years, close collaboration will mean the difference between success and stagnation.”
Foxit
Foxit announced the findings of an Enterprise Strategy Group report entitled “Balancing Tech Investment and Cost Cutting in the Face of Macroeconomic Uncertainty.” It shows executives are keen to reign in technology spending in the face of rising inflation and interest rates and a slowing global economy.
Key findings included the following:
- Business leaders forecast a 61% chance we will experience a recession in 2023.
- 83% of respondents indicated the recent rise in interest rates has led to cutbacks on spending/growth plans.
- 71% reported the rate of innovation delivered by incumbent productivity software vendors is lagging behind other competing vendors and enterprise technologies.
- 70% feel incumbent productivity software vendors enjoy monopolistic market conditions that allow them to overcharge customers.
- Though organizations strongly prefer cutting tech spending, headcount reductions are still expected.
- Respondents forecast a 38% chance they will have to lay off people on their team within the next year. Among those that expected layoffs, executives, on average, forecasted approximately 40% of their staff would be affected.
- 74% of respondents believed users would be receptive to easy-to-use/functionally equivalent productivity software alternatives.
DeeDee Kato, VP of Corporate Marketing at Foxit, commented, “With high inflation rates, economic slowdowns, and potential layoffs, organizations are having to scrutinize and defend every dollar spent in today’s current business environment. The ESG survey highlights a critical call to action for organizations to demand a shift away from overpriced incumbent technology providers who have refused to adjust their pricing and rate of innovation to match need of their customers.
“At Foxit we are focused on providing our customers meaningful benefits including a dramatic reduction in licensing fees, major savings in IT support, quantifiable improvements in security, and valuable gains in employee productivity and experience.”
InterSystems
A survey commissioned by InterSystems and conducted by research house Vitreous World found 81% of leaders in healthcare organizations across the UK and Ireland say keeping pace with patient needs is one of the main factors driving innovation initiatives within their organizations. 72% see this capability among key signs of innovation success. 71% of leaders in healthcare polled believe that innovation is vital to the survival of their organisation.
There are barriers, though with:
- 43% see budget constraints as one of the biggest barriers to innovation in healthcare
- 50% of respondents need improvements in access to real-time data
- 45% cited the skills gap around understanding data and the ability to analyse it
- 38% cited access to data as a challenge
- 33% cited that they need data in the right format
Chris Norton, managing director of UK&I, InterSystems, said: “It is encouraging to see just how much innovation is prized and prioritised by healthcare leaders today. It is, after all, crucial in building healthcare partnerships; in finding ways to share data securely and efficiently across practices and trusts; and in delivering actionable insights that achieve optimum patient health outcomes.”
“We know that enhancing patient care is at the heart of driving healthcare innovation, and data has a key role to play in that. Having technology in place and investing in solutions that can provide a holistic, real-time view of the patient journey can help medical practitioners in their decision making, helping to deliver a better level of care to their patients, in a timelier manner.”
Oracle
A new study conducted by 451 Research, part of S&P Global Market Intelligence, run by Oracle, found that 97% of companies in APAX have adopted a multi-cloud infrastructure strategy. The key findings included:
- 97% of companies in Asia Pacific surveyed use or plan to use at least two cloud infrastructure providers, and 35% use four or more.
- 95% of Asia Pacific respondents report using or planning to use at least two cloud application providers (Software-as-a-Service), with more than 48% using cloud applications from five or more providers.
This multi-cloud strategy enables IT departments to meet the unique technology needs of different teams across the organization. Data sovereignty and cost optimization are driving the demand for multi-cloud strategies.
The top five drivers of multi-cloud strategy in enterprises are:
- data sovereignty (44%)
- cost optimization (40%).
- business agility and innovation (32%)
- best cloud services and applications (27%)
- cloud vendor lock-in issues (26%)
A multi-cloud strategy gives companies more control over where and how their data is stored and used. It also ensures businesses can control the costs of their cloud operations by adjusting which services they use from different providers.
The report looks at future use cases of a multi-cloud strategy
Chris Chelliah, Senior Vice President, Technology and Customer Strategy at Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific, said, “Customers are using new cloud providers to accelerate their digital transformation goals. They want their existing critical enterprise workloads to be in the cloud faster, without the cost or risk of having to rewrite, to then leverage areas of innovation driven by machine learning and AI. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers customers the choice to deploy workloads where they work best – on-premises, in a public cloud, or even across multiple clouds.
“OCI is the most unique among other hyperscale providers. With the recent introduction of MySQL HeatWave on AWS and the recent Oracle Database Service for Microsoft Azure, Oracle has broken down the walls between cloud providers, so that customers can achieve their business results.”
Qualtrics
Research by Butler University using the Qualtrics Experience Management platform has identified five factors that drive employee well-being. Social well-being, diverse interactions, student engagement, mental health support, and healthy lifestyles, e.g., sleep, nutrition) improve student outcomes. The study highlights four recommendations for colleges and universities to support student well-being.
- Use student feedback to align campus resources with areas of need
- Work with faculty to identify opportunities and supports that enable deeper student-faculty relationships that consider individual student needs
- Incorporate personal identity development into DEI training
- Grow connection and diverse interactions in residential settings.
The findings were highlighted in a news blog by Katie Johnson, Head of Research for Education at Qualtrics, and Bridget Yuhas, Director of Student Affairs Assessment and Strategy at Butler University.
SD Worx
SD Worx has calculated that sickness absences in Belgium cost, on average, €1,465 per sick (full-time) worker per year based on data on the effective salary and absenteeism of nearly 650,000 workers. This figure rose by 28% from five years ago.
François Lombard, absenteeism specialist at SD Worx: “In 2022, absences for short-term illness in Belgium will cost on average at least 1,465 euros per full-time worker who has been absent for at least one day due to illness. This cost is calculated per person absent and does not include the employer’s costs. Our calculations have been made in a bottom-up way and ultimately reflect an average cost based on the real wages of sick workers and the effective short-term absenteeism in Belgium in 2022. In this way, this parameter constitutes an interesting point of comparison for any business.
“Added to this are employer costs which easily reach 28% or more. Please note that the cost of absenteeism is much higher. There is the salary cost of the guaranteed illness (in other words: the salary cost of the time of non-performance), which only constitutes a direct and easily measurable cost of the phenomenon. Indeed, we must not forget the consequences and indirect costs of absenteeism: loss of productivity and quality, longer delivery times for customers, internal or external replacement of the sick worker, increased workload, and possible demotivation of colleagues.”
UKG
UKG published data from the latest workforce activity and labor market findings. The total number of shifts worked at US business in March declined by 1.6%. Dave Gilbertson, vice president of UKG, commented, “After watching workforce activity levels yo-yo at the end of 2022, we’re now seeing a steeper nonseasonal decline than we’ve seen over the past year.
“This is a snapback from the stronger than expected results so far this year and puts the economy squarely on track for the much sought-after soft landing, barring other headwinds. This should be reflected in the March jobs report, which we expect to be positive but should not appear as overheated as it has been the past two months.”
