Mid-market businesses in Europe waste an astounding €6.6 billion Euros worth of technology investment every year on business software that they don’t fully use.
That’s according to research that looks as the effectiveness of IT investments across Europe.
The findings of the study are astounding with 88 percent of firms failing to completely utilise their investments in business software.
This is a huge wake-up call to EU businesses. Used correctly, business software can help drive growth. But at the moment, many of the solutions that businesses in Europe are investing in do not adequately meet the business need.
The underlying causes for this waste vary between countries. In Germany for instance, 35 per cent of respondents blame duplication with other software, while just over a quarter of UK respondents put under-use down to a lack of customer demand. The most common reasons given were lack of business need for all features with 36 per cent and dearth of user training at 25 per cent.
It is firmly believed the reason for this is that decision makers are not listening to their users enough – they try to find one-size-fits-all solutions instead of bespoke, user-centric products. They really need to think about users’ needs and also understand how employees will make the best use of the organisation’s investment.
What’s clear is that business efficiency is the key challenge that needs to be addressed by software. In the study,63 percent of respondents cited efficiency as the core driver behind their investments. But interestingly, software is only seen by around a third of countries as the route to business growth.
The study also found mobility emerged as a high-growth area, as well as usability, meaning software vendors need to consider how consumer trends are affecting their users’ and customers’ business requirements.
If business efficiency is their goal, they need solutions that have mobility and accessibility built into their core. Solutions should be as useful tomorrow as they are today.
