TSW Power Hour Session Recap: The 2014 Technology Heatmap

Yesterday was opening day of Technology Services World Best Practices, and I had a very full day. I did 5 presentations, which I think is a new personal record for a single day.  The day started with the TechFUTURES event, which was hugely attended, then the TechBEST showcase. I gave a tech trends overview at the partner Expo kickoff, then had my power hour session, and finally moderated a session on social support.

I wanted to recap some of the info from my Power Hour session, which focused on technology trends and the results from my 2014 Global Technology Survey. The results of the survey were released yesterday, including 10 research reports based on the data published on TSIA.com. The survey tracks adoption, satisfaction and planned spending across 24 categories of tools and services, and we use the adoption data to build the annual Heatmap. Here’s a look at the 2014 Technology Heatmap:

As you can see, the categories are color coded by adoption level, with letters indicating which service disciplines each category applies to (E=Education Services, F=Field Service, M=Managed Services, P=Professional Services, R=Service Revenue Generation, S=Support Services).

The three categories that saw the highest adoption gains over 2013 were:

• Field Service Parts and Logistics: +8%
• Knowledge and Content Management: +6%
• Intelligent Search: +5%

Another area everyone is always interested in is planned spending–where are companies investing in the next 1-2 years? Here’s a list of the top investment areas, with more than 50% of TSIA members having budget earmarked for new or additional purchases in 2014-2015:

• Enterprise CRM: In a cloud world, buying CRM is never over as every new feature requires an additional purchase
• Communities and Collaboration: Focus shifts from customer communities to employee collaboration
• Knowledge and Content Management: Mobile and social driving spending across disciplines
• Reporting and Analytics: Real-time dashboards key requirements across disciplines
• MultiChannel Platforms: Continued investments in chat, social channels added to core multichannel strategy

For more details on adoption and spending trends, see the spending reports for each discipline live now on TSIA.com.

Thanks for reading, and hope to see you this week at TSW!

Explore posts in the same categories: Best Practices, CRM, knowledge management, Professional Services, Technology