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Who is Investing in Smart Workplace?

Written by Deborah Hawkins | Feb 5, 2020 4:22:28 PM

 

“Smartness” is all the rage, but how far are Smart devices and solutions making it into the workplace? Keypoint Intelligence asked 260 IT decision-makers across the UK & Germany and discovered some interesting things including who is likely to invest and in what.

By way of definition, let’s start with what is Smart workplace?

Figure 1: Smart Workplace Segments by KPI

In the first instance, it’s a reaction to leading trends and soft influencers that mould our working day: The consumerisation of IT has led us to expect more from office technology; changing workstyles are upon us whether from a location perspective or generational influence; the acceleration of technology means we are in a constant mode of change. In addition, digital transformation is all around us and shaping our lives. Smart technology is not new: but it has fundamentally changed the way we do so many things. From phones, to digital assistants, thermostats, lights and blinds that make life so much easier. A smart workplace is one in which employees can perform their tasks or work more efficiently by using smart devices.  The trend is in high demand to improve the customer experience, methods of predictive maintenance and the general efficiency of processes. The increasing adoption of cloud computing, artificial intelligence, IoT and automation are expected to support the growth of the smart workplace market worldwide.

 

Having stemmed from the document imaging industry, Keypoint Intelligence puts the MFP at the heart of the Smart workplace Taxonomy. Figure 1 shows the evolving segments that are morphing out around the smart workplace.

But what of IT decision makers? At the moment Smart workplace technology is not showing as an item on the list of how IT budget is allocated but that doesn’t say that decision makers are not interested:  From a survey of 260 IT DM in Germany and the UK, 50% reported that their highest levels of investment into smart workplace were in document automation. These respondents , from a range of company sizes and vertical industries, were given the list of  technologies in figure 2 and asked to comment on where they had already invested, where they were considering investment and where they were unlikely to invest.

Figure 2: How likely is your company to invest in the following Smart Workplace technologies?

Some of the most interesting findings were the role company size plays in investment plans as well as the age of the decision maker. For example, companies with 1-49 employees were least likely to invest in any smart workplace technology. The largest of the company sizes we surveyed, 500+ employees were most likely to invest in collaboration and conferencing systems. . For more detail and other insights on smart workplace, go to our InfoTrends Complete View service or come to one of our presentations at ITEX in Orlando in May or ISE in Amsterdam in February.

Vendors and resellers alike are crying out for differentiators and smart workplace is one area that has great potential which is important to combat declining page volumes. An investment in smart workplace tech is an investment in the entire office. A wave of tech is breaching, and business is buying, now.