Remote Working at the Heart of New IT Investment, Says Report
8th May 2018
Remote working is at the forefront of the next push in IT investment, according to a new research report.
Maximising mobility: Navigating the future IT landscape looks into IT decision makers’ priorities and challenges for 2018, on behalf of Toshiba. The research reveals IT and technology budgets within European businesses, including manufacturing and logistics organisations, will increase to invest in new innovations for remote workers, such as wearable devices, including smart glasses.
Highlights of the main findings of the research report include:
• 76 per cent of organisations across Europe have increased IT and technology budgets this year
• 59 per cent of manufacturers stated hands-free functionality as a potential benefit of smart glasses
• 47 per cent of engineers plan to deploy smart glasses in the next 12 months
• 50 per cent of manufacturers stated better training for employees as a key priority for improving workforce productivity
Offering employees flexibility in their working patterns continues to be of paramount importance to organisations across Europe. The study reveals that 68% of respondents said they had at least a tenth of their employees work primarily while travelling or in no fixed location.
This increase in flexible working is a clear driver behind the top three investment priorities being data security, cloud-based solutions and improving productivity. When asked about priorities for improving productivity for this increasingly mobile workforce, almost half (47%) of respondents indicated that better employee training was critical, with 43% of respondents stating that more innovative use of digital tools was a priority.
The survey was taken by over 1,000 IT decision makers from medium and large organisations working in a variety of sectors including engineering, government and public sector, IT, manufacturing, retail and transport and logistics. The research was carried out in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Benelux. The full research report, which you can access here, features industry and regional comparisons based on this data.