How The Adoption Of Several Important Emerging Technologies Affects Sourcing

Many sourcing and vendor management (SVM) professionals who Forrester speaks with know that they need to play a proactive role in sourcing emerging technologies but have difficulty identifying which technologies matter most for their business. Interest in new technologies can vary significantly across internal stakeholder groups, and SVM professionals always have to balance the market hype with the realities of market adoption. To understand global demand for new technologies, Forrester surveyed 2,803 IT budget decision-makers about their plans to adopt technologies in four key technology categories. We found that interest in unified communications, mobile enterprise applications, and business intelligence software all have similar planned levels of adoption, with "as-a-service" adoption plans slightly lower. Further, levels of adoption varied significantly by geography — with IT professionals from fast-growing, "emerging" economies far more likely to be planning new technology investments.