Techaisle Blog

If connected cloud is the logical starting point for discussing the essential elements of a connected business platform, connected insights is the discussion’s logical destination. In today's highly competitive business environment, the significance of data has increased exponentially for most types of enterprises, including midmarket organizations and small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs). However, organizations often need help to harness data effectively to achieve desired business outcomes, mainly due to their lack of readiness for analytics. To address this issue, Qlik offers a comprehensive suite of real-time data integration and analytics solutions that seamlessly connect data, insights, and actions.

With over 40,000 active clients, of which 25,000+ are mid-sized businesses, Qlik offers an easy-to-use platform that allows business users to analyze data, gain insights, and make data-driven decisions. It empowers companies to unlock growth opportunities and optimize operations by seamlessly integrating diverse data sources and customizable analytics applications. Moreover, as organizations grow, Qlik's scalable solution can seamlessly handle mounting volumes and complexities of data analysis, making it suitable for midmarket clients and SMBs. Additionally, the company’s capacity pricing model is designed to be affordable, allowing organizations with limited resources to leverage the full potential of its robust analytics capabilities.

Techaisle’s latest research shows that analytics is a top priority for SMBs, with 73% of SMBs, 92% of core midmarket firms, and 99% of upper midmarket firms prioritizing it. In 54% of organizations, IT and business users struggle to manage data growth, while in 59%, IT and data analysts focus on data integration. Developing an ‘evidence-based culture’ is critical in using analytics to achieve business objectives. 39% of firms are working towards enabling a data-driven decision-making culture. Given this data, Techaisle believes that Qlik is well-positioned to meet the needs of midmarket firms.

Data literacy is as crucial in today’s workforce as reading and writing were during the Industrial Revolution. Qlik provides a wide range of free data literacy resources, including various courses available through a consortium with other companies. For organizations looking to enhance their employees’ skills, Qlik offers tailored programs designed in collaboration with Chief Data Officers.

QLIK: DELIVERING DATA TO INSIGHTS TO ACTIONS TO FORESIGHT

The availability of various data sources makes gaining a unified and comprehensive view of a business complex, and integrating data from diverse systems and formats is incredibly challenging for SMBs and midmarket enterprises with limited resources. Recognizing this challenge, Qlik provides a solution that empowers organizations to conduct cross-functional analyses, unveiling hidden insights and correlations that may otherwise remain concealed in data silos.

Techaisle's latest SMB and Midmarket Digital transformation adoption trends research shows that 37% of small businesses (1-99 employees) and 46% of midmarket firms (100-4999 employees) expedited their digital transformation efforts due to pandemic. On the flip side, 27% of SMBs (1-999 employees) slowed down their digital transformation to prioritize their business's essential aspects, such as revenue generation. 27% of upper midmarket firms (1000-4999 employees) either changed their approach to transformation or kept the same pace as before the pandemic.

Investment in digital transformation has been underway for several years and was poised to be an essential factor in the IT and business market in the early 2020s. The pandemic lent urgency to digital transformation – but having arrived in a hurry, the changes wrought in response to the pandemic do not appear to be leaving as abruptly.

The accelerated pace of transformation will result in US$1,163B worldwide spend on IT (excluding telecom services) by SMB and upper-midmarket firms in 2021.

Unlike many IT market terms, which tie to specific technologies or technology capabilities, digital transformation is most often used to indicate an amorphous state in which an organization can seamlessly deploy new digital capabilities that streamline current or next-step processes, eliminating the business friction.

Organizational restructuring to hasten pace of transformation

Generally, firms consider digital transformation as a proxy for process efficiency. For many years, it has been a management goal, embedded without a consistent set of steps and defined outcomes in the IT plans of a substantial majority of SMBs. The pandemic brought urgency to these plans: there are numerous anecdotal reports of IT leaders being told, "you know that three-year digital transformation plan? Can you deliver it in three months instead?" For the most part, these requests tended to have a minimal additional budget attached to them, generally came without requisitions for new IT staff. These requests reflected management's understanding that highly-automated processes are essential in a business environment where physical interactions are awkward or forbidden, adding necessity to efficiency as compelling reasons to invest in digital transformation.

To change the transformation pace, 17% of SMBs are restructuring their entire organizations, and 24% are creating new functions dedicated to digital transformation. The changes will be more pronounced in the midmarket and upper-midmarket firms, which are quickly putting together dedicated groups and departments to digitize, digitalize and transform their organizations. Nearly one-fifth of SMBs are relying on their employees to guide transformation initiatives.

Changing digital transformation drivers

In 2018, 41 percent of US midmarket firms had set their ambitions on a “Holistic” digital transformation strategy, meaning that these firms believed that Internet and digital technologies impacted every aspect of their business and should be a core part of their organizational strategy. In 2019, midmarket firms have tempered their ambitions and only 27 percent believe in holistic strategy. Nevertheless, the percent of midmarket firms with “Inclusive” digital transformation has remained unchanged at 43 percent. These firms believe that digital transformation while important is still a subset of strategic planning but not seen as critical business-wide. Both the 2018 and 2019 surveys were conducted with 876 midmarket firms.

Good news is that 17 percent of midmarket firms have either completed or have substantially completed their digital transformation journey. Another 46 percent are focusing on digitally transforming their businesses in the next 1-2 years. Highest planned adoption at 41 percent is coming from high-growth midmarket firms.

So what changed in the last 1-2 years?