Research from the last two weeks included research by Storyblok revealing nearly one in four shoppers are actively put off purchasing a product if endorsed by influencers. Several vendors took the opportunity to publish reports by Forrester.
Intuit
Intuit published the findings of the Intuit QuickBooks Entrepreneurship in 2024 Report. According to a survey of more than 4,500 US adults, inflation and interest rates are the greatest threats to the ability to build personal wealth in 2024. Moreover, 66% believe starting a business is a better path to building personal wealth than buying a house. As a result, 23% are considering starting a business in the new year, with Gen Z showing the most interest in entrepreneurship.
Nearly a third (32%) of small businesses created since 2020 were funded in part by tax refunds. Given this, the size of 2024 tax refunds will likely impact business growth and formation, with 65% of respondents saying a smaller return will make it harder for them to start a business or side hustle.
57% of respondents who started a business said boosting their income amid inflation influenced their decision to launch a business venture – equal to the amount who cited the COVID-19 pandemic as a reason. Inflation remains the number one challenge as higher interest rates increase the cost of borrowing.
monday.com
monday.com commissioned a Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact report. The difference is that this report looks at the impact on the Monday.com partner ecosystem rather than customers. The Partner Opportunity for monday.com Work OS reveals how monday.com empowers its partners to grow their revenue and expand their market presence.
The TEI study of monday.com’s partner ecosystem examines the potential return on investment (ROI) enterprises can obtain by deploying monday.com. It is based on several monday.com partner interviews across Europe, North America, and Australia conducted by Forrester, which aggregated results into a single composite partner organization.
The study found that monday.com partners saw 100% YoY growth in service revenues, 65% ROI over three years, $3M in total service revenues over three years as well as a seven-month investment payback period.
Ophir Penso, VP of Partnerships at monday.com, said, “We’re thrilled to learn of and share the findings from this study as we continue to further empower our global partners to seamlessly integrate into our ecosystem, unlock their growth potential and increase profitability with diversified revenue streams.
“In the year ahead, we’ll further invest in our partners while growing our product suite, including monday sales CRM and monday dev, to provide them with even greater offerings for our diversified user base.”
Pigment
Pigment also published a Forrester Consulting Total Economic Impact report. The report demonstrates that customers can achieve an ROI in less than 6 months. The 2023 TEI demonstrated Pigment’s substantial ROI for a composite organization representative of interviewed customers, 306%, including over $8.1 million in benefits over three years and more than 1,000 hours saved for analysts per year across Finance, Sales and Supply Chain planning.
Key findings, based on a composite customer, were:
- More than $1 million and $500,000 saved per year across sales and financial planning, respectively.
- A substantially lower total cost of ownership compared to costly and ineffective legacy solutions.
- Greater speed and accuracy from forecasting and scenario planning.
- Supply Chain stock savings of $859,000.
- Better collaboration and decision-making across the organization.
Eléonore Crespo, co-CEO and co-founder of Pigment said, “This study confirms what we repeatedly hear from customers: that Pigment simplifies complex decision-making while also providing significant time-saving and financial benefits, especially compared to existing legacy platforms.
“Even more encouraging to see is that Pigment is also enriching the day-to-day lives of employees who can finally use modern technology to easily collaborate with the right people, and focus on what really matters to the business.”
Salesforce
Salesforce highlighted two trends it discovered in the data from the holiday shopping season.
- Buy Online Pick Up In-Store (BOPIS) orders will account for one-third of online holiday sales after shipping cutoff.
- AI on track to influence $194 billion in holiday sales for the full holiday season
Other key findings included:
- Online sales remain flat. The EU growth of 6% buoys global online growth.
- Buy Online Pick Up in Store accounted for 25% of orders during the three weeks following Cyber Monday and peaked at 28% on December 16th. Salesforce believes this will continue to grow as Christmas nears.
- AI has influenced 17% of all orders since Nov. 1.
- Returns are high, with Salesforce predicting over $131 billion worth of orders purchased this holiday season will be returned in the next year.
- Discounts fell after Cyber Week.
- Holiday shoppers are taking advantage of mobile wallets and BNPL schemes.
- Mobile shopping accounted for 75% of all digital traffic during the three weeks after Cyber Monday.
Rob Garf, VP and GM of Retail and Consumer Goods said, “Seamless fulfilment and easy returns will be key strategies for retailers looking to increase loyalty and profitability through the remainder of the holiday. Retailers that are efficiently fulfilling online orders from physical stores, especially during these peak shopping days, can extend their shipping cutoff date and win market share.”