A survey of 111 CFOs in July 2021 revealed that 60% of organizations experienced wage inflation in 2Q21, nearly double the amount compared to the previous quarter, according to Gartner, Inc. Nearly three in four CFOs polled cited the risk of lower profitability as their top concern as organizations face broad-based input price inflation increases.

The extensive cost of last mile delivery often leads to a lack of profitability, with over 50% of shipping costs attributed to last mile alone. The increasing demand for e-commerce and rising consumer expectations has placed greater pressure on companies to expedite delivery while keeping costs low.

With robotics and automation taking over more tasks in organizations, the role of the chief robotics officer (CRO) should be created to strategically drive the proliferation of these technologies, according to Gartner, Inc.

Industry suppliers from truck and trailer OEMs to commercial telematics providers continue to feel the pain of delayed semiconductor shipments alongside rising growth opportunities. The commercial transportation industry is facing significant semiconductor shortages through to at least the end of 2021 leading into 2022.

International Data Corporation (IDC) recently published a new forecast for the Worldwide Public Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) markets, which includes revenue segmentation across IDC's 18 enterprise workload categories. The combined Public Cloud IaaS and PaaS market is forecast to have revenues of $400 billion in 2025 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.8% during the 2021-2025 forecast period.

IDP vendors are expected to offer more out-of-the-box, pre-trained IDP solutions to meet the demand for faster ROI and quicker deployment. Cost impact is now the key driver for IDP adoption as enterprises seek to realize tangible benefits from the technology, closely followed by improving operational efficiency and productivity.

A new IDC report provides an overview of Indian organizations’ skill development plans in the near future. This report provides insights into organizations' skill development goals, the importance of technology skills in digital transformation goals, the overall business impact arising from lack of skills, how organizations plan to acquire or develop critical skills within their businesses in the next six months.

By the end of 2021, 51% of all knowledge workers worldwide are expected to be working remotely, up from 27% of knowledge workers in 2019, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner also estimates that remote workers will represent 32% of all employees worldwide by the end of 2021. This is up from 17% of employees in 2019. Gartner defines knowledge workers are those who are involved in knowledge-intensive occupations, such as writers, accountants, or engineers.

Frost & Sullivan finds that autonomy and artificial intelligence (AI) promote commercial unmanned aerial system (UAS) adoption and associated market growth globally. Autonomous flight reduces workforce costs, whereas AI-driven data collection and processing shorten the time it takes to produce results, directly impacting decision-making. The global commercial UAS platform market is expected to reach $22.28 billion by 2025.

Despite the apparent recovery from the effects of the pandemic, about 22% of North American public companies were not financially or operationally stable at the end of Q12021. Of these companies, 20% were stressed, meaning underperforming industry peers or experiencing pressure from internal or external sources, and 2% were distressed, meaning having trouble meeting financial obligations or experiencing severe operational challenges.

While most organizations continue to spend more hours on their SOX compliance activities year-over-year, digital leaders have reported experiencing a lesser impact of increasing hours, which suggests they are gaining advantages through greater use of technology (including automation) in the SOX compliance process. 51% of survey respondents utilized technology tools in the testing of controls for their fiscal year, marking a yearly increase of 5%.

The majority of IT organizations in mid- to large-sized organizations are now using a complex combination of services that are constantly evolving in response to the introduction of new technologies and changing business requirements. Optimizing data management across hybrid, multi-cloud infrastructure environments is increasingly recognized as a critical area of competency.

About 68% of enterprises that embarked upon digital transformation have not realized the envisioned outcomes, according to Everest Group. A majority of enterprises attribute this shortfall in return on investment to having an undefined or ineffective change management strategy, with 58% of enterprises citing change resistance as a key obstacle.

Strategy Analytics finds that explosive growth in consumer broadband Internet traffic is coming to an end. The Strategy Analytics Service Provider Strategies (SPS) service report, “Is Fixed Broadband Traffic Growth Slowing Down?,” predicts that annual growth in consumer broadband Internet traffic will decline by 82 percent in 2018 – 2028.

Teams are still in the early stages of next-gen internal audit journeys. Amidst digital acceleration efforts perpetuated by the pandemic, internal audit teams face a more disruptive environment and demands to add value to their organizations. 66% of survey respondents report plans to increase their focus on innovation and transformation initiatives.

With consumers, governments and investors all pushing for decarbonization, companies are racing to act or accelerating their journey towards net-zero. Achieving net-zero requires companies to identify opportunities to create value through cost reduction or growth, in addition to risk protection.

The need for secure email has never been stronger as the complexity and volume of threats have increased significantly. Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis finds that the global email security market is estimated to reach $5.27 billion by 2025 from $3.14 billion in 2020, expanding at a CAGR of 10.9%, with North America expected to remain the largest contributor.

Gartner, Inc. predicts that by 2025, 70% of organizations will shift their focus from big to small and wide data, providing more context for analytics and making artificial intelligence (AI) less data hungry. Disruptions such as the COVID-19 pandemic is causing historical data that reflects past conditions to quickly become obsolete, which is breaking many production AI and machine learning (ML) models.

The wave of protests against systemic racism in 2020 prompted leadership teams across the country to increase engagement with businesses owned by Black people, women and other underrepresented groups. A growing number of executives are confirming that not only is diversifying their supplier base a good move for society, but also improves business performance.

72% of data and analytics (D&A) leaders with digital initiatives are either leading or heavily involved in their organization’s digital transformation initiatives, according to Gartner, Inc.’s sixth annual Chief Data Officer (CDO) survey*. D&A strategy has a primary role in digital business strategy, affecting everything the organization does.