Tech intensity becomes a key competitive factor for companies. Roman Ostapchuk on Microsoft State of Tech Intensity 2019 report

Tech intensity becomes a key competitive factor for companies. Roman Ostapchuk on Microsoft State of Tech Intensity 2019 report
Roman Ostapchuk
deputy CEO of technology development
On Wednesday, December 18, Microsoft announced the results of its State of Tech Intensity 2019 survey. Between May and June 2019, the authors surveyed more than 700 CEOs operating in various industries.

Roman Ostapchuk, Deputy CEO for Technical Development of STEP LOGIC, believes that the published Microsoft report shows the importance of the new approach to corporate digitalization for major IT players in the market:

“This approach is caused by significant difficulties in implementing the “standard digitalization technologies” proposed by suppliers. These difficulties are connected with the necessity of a profound adaptation of the out-of-the-box solutions for specific customers' business needs, and with the dynamics of these changes within the entire operational cycle of the solution used. The new approach primarily involves the development of flexible and easy-to-learn augmented reality tools, machine learning and other modern technologies, as well as training the maximum number of various employees of the customer to work with these tools. Final application solutions will be created and improved within the customer's ecosystem by means of the company's internal resources. This approach looks systemic and will surely find enough supporters among companies focused on organic growth. At the same time, the classic advantages of supplier companies that offer out-of-the-box solutions tailored to meet the market needs or based on the cross-transfer of ideas between different industries of their customers, will not disappear, and we will long witness the competition between Microsoft approach and the approaches to customer digitalization of other major market players”.

The results of the study show a tendency to go beyond the implementation of basic technologies and applications — companies have been actively creating proprietary solutions based on basic technologies (machine learning, IoT, AI, blockchain) from 2010 to 2019. According to the study, companies most often use machine learning (39%), IoT (37%), AI (32%), blockchain (29%) and mixed reality (21%) to create new solutions. Microsoft refers to this approach as “tech intensity”.

The majority of respondents noted that tech intensity is becoming a powerful competitive advantage and brings significant changes in many industries: media, telecom, financial, retail and automotive.

Growing competition is one of the effects of digital intensity. Respondents believe that technology can improve society. 43% of respondents believe that the development of technologies will improve the quality of public services and mobile communications in rural areas (40%). Respondents also expect improvements in health (36%), occupational safety (33%) and consumer safety (36%), as well as easier access to financial services (33%). Only 8% do not see benefits to society in digital intensity. 36% of respondents believe that technological development will eliminate economic inequality. However, the majority (47%) still believe that in countries with higher GDP the technological development will progress faster.
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