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Posts tagged ‘IBM’

Apr 6

LinkedIn Best Companies To Work For In 2022 Dominated Again By Tech

LinkedIn

Amazon’s Sunnyvale, CA Campus (source: Istockphoto)

  • Tech leaders are six of LinkedIn’s top ten companies to grow your career in 2022.
  • Amazon is the again highest rated company, followed by Alphabet (2nd), IBM (6th), AT&T (7th), Apple (9th), and Comcast (10th).
  • 19 of the 50 top companies in the U.S. are in the tech industry, including Dell, Intel, Oracle, Salesforce, Cisco, and others.
  • LinkedIn identified four key trends in their analysis, with flexible work is becoming table stakes for recruiting and retaining employees.

These and many other insights are from LinkedIn Top Companies 2022: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S., published today. All 50 companies are currently hiring and have over 530,000 jobs open across the U.S, with over 70,000 being remote positions. The LinkedIn analysis of the best companies to grow your career spans 35 global markets, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Ireland, France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Israel, Italy, Spain, the U.K., Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Portugal, India, Japan, Singapore, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.

LinkedIn’s Top Companies 2022 spotlights the organizations investing in employee success and career development. LinkedIn’s methodology and internal analysis ranked companies based on seven pillars that display career progression: ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background.

The 19 Best Tech Companies To Grow Your Career In 2022

The following are profiles of the top 19 tech companies hiring in the U.S. today with links to available positions accessible via LinkedIn:

Amazon

Amazon is the parent company of Whole Foods Market, Zappos, Twitch, PillPack, and others.

Global headcount: 1,600,000 (with 1,100,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, New York City | Most notable skills: Warehouse Operations, Data Entry, AWS Lambda | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Fulfillment Associate, Warehouse Associate | Largest job functions: Operations, Engineering, Program and Project Management | What you should know: Even as the country’s second-largest private employer, Amazon continues to compete in recruiting and retaining top talent amid a competitive labor market. The company recently announced that it’s doubling its maximum base salary for corporate and tech workers, and it raised average wages for warehouse workers late last year, increasing pay for more than half a million of its employees. But the e-commerce giant is going beyond compensation, too: investing $1.2 billion over the next three years to expand its education and skills training initiatives. Amazon now pays 100% of college tuition for frontline employees as part of its Career Choice program and covers high school diploma programs, GEDs, and English proficiency certifications.

See jobs at Amazon

Alphabet

Alphabet is the parent company of Google, YouTube, Fitbit, Waymo, Verily, and others.

Global headcount: 156,000 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, New York City, Seattle | Most notable skills: Video Editing and Production, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), C++ | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Program Manager, Product Manager | Largest job function: Engineering, Information Technology, Program and Project Management | What you should know: It’s been a big year for Alphabet: The company onboarded nearly 6,500 employees last quarter and saw significant growth across Google’s Cloud service and YouTube (whose revenues are now growing at a faster rate than Netflix). For those interested in flexibility, the tech giant has a robust offering. In addition to adopting a hybrid work model, the company told LinkedIn that Alphabet offers four ‘work from anywhere’ weeks per year, sabbaticals for long-term employees, and ‘no meeting’ days. But Alphabet has also worked to maintain a collaborative culture and support career growth while working remotely. Employees can take advantage of resource groups like Women@Google and its Googler-to-Googler training, which lets its workers get first-hand knowledge across different fields from other employees.

See jobs at Alphabet

IBM

IBM is the parent company of Red Hat, SoftLayer Technologies, Truven Health Analytics, and others.

Global headcount: 250,000 | Top U.S. locations: New York City; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; San Francisco Bay Area | Most special skills: Kubernetes, Openshift, Hybrid Cloud | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Project Manager, Data Scientist | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales | What you should know: The perennial IT giant has re-upped its benefits offerings amid the Great Reshuffle, IBM told LinkedIn. The new initiatives are increased paid time off, more promotion and pay reviews, backup dependent care, virtual tutoring, and ‘compassionate leave’ for parents who experience stillbirth or miscarriage. In addition, as the company moves forward with a hybrid working model that allows employees to decide how often they want to be onsite, IBM has also transformed its onboarding process with “a focus on empathy and engagement” to help remote new hires feel more connected.

See jobs at IBM

AT&T

AT&T is the parent company of DIRECTV, WarnerMedia, Cricket Wireless, and others.

Global full-time headcount: 202,600 | Top U.S. locations: Atlanta, Dallas, New York City | Most notable skills: Design Thinking, Customer Experience, Futurism | Most common job titles: Retail Sales Consultant, Client Solutions Executive, Customer Service Representative | Largest job functions: Sales, Information Technology, Engineering | What you should know: Just three years after the acquisition of Time Warner, AT&T is changing course. The company agreed to a deal last year that will combine WarnerMedia’s assets with Discovery’s to create a new, separate global entertainment giant. Once the spinoff is completed (likely mid-2022), the telecom company will be focused on its core business — expanding access to broadband internet. For its employees, AT&T offers several advancement opportunities. For example, it invests $2 million annually in ‘AT&T University,’ an internal training program to help its workers upskill, and has partnered with groups like Udacity and Coursera to offer advanced online courses.

See jobs at AT&T

Apple

Apple is the parent company of AuthenTec, NeXT Software, Shazam, and others.

Global headcount: 154,000 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area; Austin, Texas; New York City | Most notable skills: Apple Software and Hardware, Technical Learning, iOS | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Technical Specialist, Mac Genius | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales | What you should know: Apple is increasing benefits and pay for retail workers to attract and retain employees at its 270 retail stores across the U.S. — including doubling sick days for both full-time and part-time employees and granting more vacation days. Its retail employees are also eligible for paid parental leave and can access discounted emergency childcare. In addition, after being one of the first companies to tell its corporate employees to work remotely in March 2020, Apple is now asking that they return to the office three days a week.

See jobs at Apple

Comcast

Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, Sky, DreamWorks Animation, and others.

Global headcount: 189,000 (with 130,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Philadelphia, New York City, Los Angeles | Most notable skills: Media Production, Cable Modems, Broadcast Television | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Communications Technician, Salesperson | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology | What you should know: Comcast prioritizes career growth and development among its employees through various benefits — including mentorship programs, department rotations and tuition assistance for continuing education and skills development. As a part of its commitment to wellbeing, it also pays for 78% of its employees’ health care costs. Want an in? Comcast says the #1 skill it looks for in new hires is authenticity. “We believe that by being yourself, you are empowered to do your best work,” the company told LinkedIn.

See jobs at Comcast

Meta

Meta is the parent company of Onavo, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others.

Global headcount: 71,900 | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City | Most notable skills: PHP, Program Management, Social Media Marketing | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Technical Recruiter, Data Scientist | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Human Resources

See jobs at Meta

Dell Technologies

Dell Technologies is the parent company of Dell EMC, SecureWorks, and others.

Global headcount: 133,000 | Top U.S. locations: Austin, Texas; Boston; San Francisco Bay Area | Most notable skills: Software as a Service (SaaS), Kubernetes, Salesforce | Most common job titles: Account Executive, Software Engineer, Inside Sales Representative | Largest job functions: Sales, Information Technology, Engineering

See jobs at Dell Technologies

 Accenture

Accenture is the parent company of Karmarama, The Monkeys, Fjord, and others.

Global headcount: 674,000 | Top U.S. locations: Washington D.C., New York City, Chicago | Most notable skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Management Consulting, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) | Most common job titles: Managing Director, Management Consultant, Business Integration Manager | Largest job functions: Information Technology, Business Development, Engineering

See jobs at Accenture

 Verizon

Verizon is the parent company of GTE Corporation, MCI Communications Corporation, and others.

Global headcount: 119,400 (with 105,800 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Dallas, Washington D.C. | Most notable skills: Quotas, Wireless Technologies, Solution Selling | Most common job titles: Solutions Specialist, Customer Service Representative, Business Account Manager | Largest job functions: Sales, Engineering, Information Technology

See jobs at Verizon

 Intel

Intel is the parent company of Mobileye, Data Center Group, and others.

Global headcount: 121,000 (with 55,700 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Portland, Ore.; Phoenix; San Francisco Bay Area | Most notable skills: JMP, System on a Chip (SoC), Statistical Process Control (SPC) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Process Engineer, System-on-Chip Design Engineer | Largest job functions: Engineering, Operations, Information Technology

See jobs at Intel

Oracle

Oracle is the parent company of MICROS Systems, NetSuite, Peoplesoft, BEA Systems, and others.

Global headcount: 133,000 (46,600 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Denver | Most notable skills: Oracle Cloud, NetSuite, OCI | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Business Development Consultant, Application Sales Manager | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology

See jobs at Oracle

 Salesforce

Salesforce is the parent company of Slack, Mulesoft, Buddy Media, Tableau, and others.

Global headcount: 74,300 (41,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, New York City | Most notable skills: Salesforce.com Administration, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Slack | Most common job titles: Account Executive, Software Engineer, Solutions Engineer | Largest job functions: Sales, Engineering, Information Technology

See jobs at Salesforce

Cisco

Cisco is the parent company of Duo Security and others.

Global headcount: 81,800 (38,800 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area; Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; Dallas | Most notable skills: Software as a Service (SaaS), Kubernetes, Network Engineering | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Account Manager, Program Manager | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales

See jobs at Cisco

Cognizant

Global headcount: 330,600 (34,680 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Dallas, Chicago | Most notable skills: Amazon Web Services (AWS), Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Agile & Waterfall Methodologies | Most common job titles: Project Manager, Software Engineer, Technical Lead | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Program and Project Management

See jobs at Cognizant | See people you may know at Cognizant

Siemens

Siemens is the parent company of Mendix and others.

Global headcount: 303,000 (with 40,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta | Most notable skills: Building Automation, HVAC Controls, Electrical Troubleshooting | Most common job titles: Project Manager, Software Engineer, Senior Sales Executive | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Operations

See jobs at Siemens

Juniper Networks

Global headcount: 10,400 (with 4,400 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: San Francisco Bay Area, Boston, Washington D.C. | Most notable skills: Junos, Kubernetes, Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, System Engineer, Technical Support Engineer  | Largest job functions: Engineering, Sales, Information Technology

See jobs at Juniper Networks

Viasat

Viasat is the parent company of RigNet and others.

Global headcount: 5,800 | Top U.S. locations: San Diego, Denver, Atlanta | Most notable skills: RF Test, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Satellite Communications (SATCOM) | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Program Manager, System Engineer | Largest job functions: Engineering, Information Technology, Operations

See jobs at Viasat

MathWorks

Global headcount: 5,000 (with 3,000 in the U.S.) | Top U.S. locations: Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles | Most notable skills: MATLAB, Simulink, Deep Learning | Most common job titles: Software Engineer, Application Support Engineer, Principal Software Engineer | Largest job function: Engineering, Information Technology, Sales

See jobs at MathWorks

 

LinkedIn’s Key Trends Of 2022

  • Flexible work is becoming table stakes for recruiting and retaining employees. With job seekers and employees in the driver’s seat and able to ask for the work-life balance they need, flexible work has become required to attract and retain top talent. Most companies on this year’s list offer some form of work-from-anywhere flexibility, with more than 70,000 remote jobs open now across the top 50 companies. Many companies also allow employees to set their schedules and work custom “on” hours through asynchronous work. Some, like Amazon (#1), Raytheon Technologies (#21), and General Motors (#44), are encouraging work-life balance with company-wide days off, while others offer unlimited paid vacation and sabbaticals. In addition, many companies are testing out new flexible offerings – employees at Cisco (#30) have adopted a four-day workweek through the company’s Interim Reduced Workweek program, IBM (#6) has set mandatory “off” hours, Cognizant (#33) offers the option to work a compressed week through its WorkFlex program, Realogy (#40) has a no meetings policy on “Focus Fridays,” Publicis Groupe (#41) allows employees the freedom to work from anywhere they like for up to six weeks per year and PwC (#32) allows employees to step away from work for up to six months while paid through its new Leave of Absence program.
  • Top companies offer stability in an unstable world. While many companies across the U.S. have faced challenges and disruptions over the last year, the Top Companies offer stability and upskilling opportunities that employees can count on – from tuition assistance and PTO for professional development to mentorship programs and job shadowing. Many organizations instituted new programs to retain employees. For example, Deloitte (#11) introduced a new Talent Experience Office focused on employee sentiments and preferences to help inform company choices, EY (#22) offers a Pathway to Purpose virtual program to help employees discover and live their personal purpose and vision, and Kimley-Horn (#31) offers job rotations, so employees learn from different roles and departments. Amazon (#1) is investing $1.2 billion to expand its education and skills training initiatives, Walmart (#5) gives field-based associates access to a no-cost college degree through its Live Better U program, and Verizon (#18) offers an apprenticeship program for those facing employment loss due to automation in technology to prepare them for the jobs of the future. PwC (#32) invested $3 billion in a “New World. New Skills” commitment to equip employees with digital training and awarded a “thank you” bonus of one-week extra pay. Bank of America (#8) provided an additional $1 billion in compensation stock awards to employees globally, and Northrop Grumman (#38) enhanced their annual bonus plan in addition to their ongoing stay interviews.
  • Mental health care is going mainstream across hiring and talent management. To keep employees healthy and happy at work, almost all of this year’s honorees now provide services that address mental health and well-being. Companies like Intel (#23), Salesforce (#28), and Juniper Networks (#46) provide dedicated mental health days, with many – including FedEx (#47) and Blackstone (#43) – offering company-paid mental health benefits. In addition, EY (#22) has expanded its no-cost counseling and mental health coaching sessions to 25 per year for employees and family. Deloitte (#11) provides a $1,000 well-being subsidy in addition to individualized psychological health resources. Unitedhealth Group (#13) provides complimentary access to wellness apps offering coaching, talk therapy, and more.
  • Authenticity, compassion, and curiosity are must-have skills. Most of the Top Companies do not require college degrees and instead look for soft skills that can translate across departments and roles. For example, the #1 skill Comcast (#10) seeks in new hires is authenticity, HCA Healthcare (#37) wants new hires to possess compassion, and Dell Technologies (#14) looks for people who thrive in an environment with a diversity of people and ideas. Accenture (#17), Oracle (#27), and Lockheed Martin (#29) value candidates with curiosity and eagerness to learn and grow. Alphabet (#2) looks for problem-solving skills and a growth mindset.

LinkedIn’s Top 50 Companies In The U.S., 2022

  1. Amazon
  2. Alphabet
  3. Wells Fargo
  4. JPMorgan Chase & Co.
  5. Walmart
  6. IBM
  7. AT&T
  8. Bank of America
  9. Apple
  10. Comcast
  11. Deloitte
  12. Meta
  13. UnitedHealth Group
  14. Dell Technologies
  15. CVS Health
  16. The Walt Disney Company
  17. Accenture
  18. Verizon
  19. GE
  20. Boeing
  21. Raytheon Technologies
  22. EY
  23. Intel
  24. Keller Williams
  25. Kaiser Permanente
  26. Target
  27. Oracle
  28. Salesforce
  29. Lockheed Martin
  30. Cisco
  31. Kimley-Horn
  32. PwC
  33. Cognizant
  34. Citi
  35. Citadel
  36. Johnson & Johnson
  37. HCA Healthcare
  38. Northrop Grumman
  39. Siemens
  40. Realogy
  41. Publicis Groupe
  42. Whiting-Turner
  43. Blackstone
  44. General Motors
  45. Capital One
  46. Juniper Networks
  47. FedEx
  48. Ford Motor Company
  49. Viasat
  50. MathWorks

 

May 26

5 Comments

The Most Innovative Companies of 2021 According to BCG

The Most Innovative Companies of 2021 According to BCG
Apple Headquarters, Apple Park in Cupertino, CA. 
  • Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Tesla are considered the five most innovative companies, according to BCG’s analysis of the 50 most innovative companies of 2021. 
  • Abbott Labs, AstraZeneca, Comcast, Mitsubishi, and Moderna join the top 50 most innovative companies for the first time this year.
  • The fastest movers include Toyota, who jumped from 41st to 21st; Salesforce, who jumped from 35th to 22nd; and Coca-Cola, who jumped from 48th to 28th.
  • 90% of companies that outperform on innovation outcomes demonstrate clear C-suite ownership of the innovation agenda.

These and many other insights are from the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) 15th annual report defining the world’s 50 most innovative companies in 2021. BCG surveyed 1,500 global innovation executives and found a 10% point increase, to 75%, in executives reporting that innovation is a top-three priority at their companies today. That’s the most significant year-over-year increase in the 15 global innovation surveys BCG has conducted since 2005. BCG’s Most Innovative Companies 2021: Overcoming the Innovation Readiness Gap is available for download free here (28 pp., PDF).  This years’ report methodology focuses on identifying the factors causing a large innovation readiness gap between the world’s most innovative companies and their peers across industries. Please see page 23 of the study for the methodology.

Key insights from BCGs’ most innovative companies of 2020 include the following:

  • Creating a new COVID-19 vaccine in less than a year, inventing test kits in weeks to protect public health, and redefining online shopping and safe home delivery reflect the versatility of the world’s most innovative companies in 2021. Pzifer, Moderna, and Merck & Company’s innate ability to innovate gave everyone a decade of their lives back. Delivering a vaccine in a year when the initial projection was a decade reflects the innovative efficiency of these companies. 2021 is the first year Abbott Labs, who invented and scaled the production of COVID-19 test kits, is included in the 50 most innovative companies worldwide. Amazon and Walmart’s logistics and e-commerce expertise helped ensure safe online shopping and fast home delivery was available to millions of people under stay-at-home orders.
The Most Innovative Companies of 2021 According to BCG
  • Five factors most differentiate the most and least innovative companies. The basis of BCG’s methodology to identify the 50 most innovative companies in 2021 centers on their innovation-to-impact (i2i) framework. The framework is designed to help companies measure the readiness of their innovation programs to operate at a consistently high level of efficiency and effectiveness. The BCG i2i scoring system identified five factors that most differentiate innovative company leaders and laggards. The five factors that best indicate how innovative a company has the potential to be are shown in the following graphic:  
The Most Innovative Companies of 2021 According to BCG

  • Lack of collaboration between sales, marketing & R&D is the major obstacle to innovation.    31% of all companies surveyed see poor collaboration between marketing and R&D as the most significant obstacle to improving the return on their innovation investments. According to BCG, the collaboration between marketing, sales, and R&D is the most challenging in the Pharmaceutical industry, where 42% of respondents say it’s the biggest hurdle to achieving more significant returns on innovation.
The Most Innovative Companies of 2021 According to BCG
  • Digital transformation of the core business is now a top priority for 75% of CEOs, and 65% of firms are doubling down on their plans for transformation with renewed urgency. BCG identified six success factors that together—and only together—flip the odds of digital transformation success from 30% to 80%. Those six success factors are close integration of digital strategy with the business strategy, commitment from the CEO through middle management, a talent core of digital superstars, business-led and flexible technology and data platforms, agile governance, and effective monitoring of progress toward defined outcomes.

Conclusion

Companies that know how to collaborate quickly between customer and R&D teams have an inside edge on being innovation leaders. The world’s most innovative companies also have senior management teams committed to the long-term success of nascent, unproven programs. There’s greater tolerance for risk, more of a focus on customers first and innovating around their needs, and an intuitive sense of how to close innovation gaps that hold other companies back.  

Apr 28

LinkedIn Best Companies To Work For In 2021 Dominated By Tech

  • Four of LinkedIn’s top ten companies to grow your career in 2021 are tech leaders.
  • Amazon is the highest rated company, followed by Alphabet (2nd), IBM (6th), and Apple (8th).
  • 15 of the 50 top companies in the U.S. are in the tech industry, including Oracle, Salesforce, and SAP.

These and many other insights are from the LinkedIn Top Companies 2021: The 50 best workplaces to grow your career in the U.S. published today. All 50 companies are currently hiring and have over 300,000 jobs available right now. LinkedIn’s analysis of the best companies to grow your career spans 20 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Qatar, the UAE, and the U.K. 

LinkedIn is relying on a new methodology for the 2021 Top Companies Report. They’re basing the methodology has seven key pillars, each revealing an important element of career progression: the ability to advance, skills growth, company stability, external opportunity, company affinity, gender diversity, and educational background. LinkedIn provides an in-depth description of how they built their methodology here.

The 10 Best Companies To Grow Your Career In 2021

  1. Amazon – According to LinkedIn, Amazon has built an innovative remote-onboarding system, and it has more than 30,000 openings now. The fastest-growing skills in demand at Amazon include User Experience Design (UED), Digital Illustration, and Interaction Design. LinkedIn’s analysis shows the most in-demand jobs are Health And Safety Specialist, Station Operations Manager, Learning Manager.
  1. Alphabet, Inc – Planning to add at least 10,000 jobs in the U.S. alone and investing $7B in data centers and offices across 19 states, Alphabet grew revenue 47% last year, reaching $13B.  According to LinkedIn, the most in-demand jobs are Digital Specialist, Field Sales Specialist, and Business Systems Analyst.
  1. JPMorgan Chase & Co. – JPMorgan now offers 300 accredited skills and education programs to its workers, and the bank has been boosting wages for thousands of customer-facing roles to $16-$20 an hour. The most in-demand jobs include Market Specialist, Software Engineering Specialist, and Mortgage Underwriter.
  1. AT&T – 2020 was a tough year for AT&T, increasing the urgency the company has to grow its wireless and WarnerMedia businesses. Due to the pandemic, the company had to close hundreds of stores. Fortunately, AT&T was able to help the employees affected by the closures to find new jobs. The most in-demand jobs are Service Analyst, Trading Analyst, and Investment Specialist.
  1. Bank of America – Bank of America rose to the challenges of 2020, quickly redeploying almost 30,000 employees to assist in its role facilitating the government-backed Paycheck Protection Program. The most in-demand jobs are Trading Analyst, Investment Specialist, and Financial Management Analyst.
  1. IBM – More than one-third of IBM’s revenue now comes from work related to cloud computing. The company’s Red Hat unit is a leading contributor to that growth, prizing skills such as Linux, Java, Python, and agile methodologies. IBM also is a leader in hiring autistic people through its Neurodiversity program. Most in-demand jobs include Back End Developer, Enterprise Account Executive, and Technical Writer.
  1. Deloitte –  Deloitte’s key activities span audit, assurance, tax, risk, and financial advisory work, as well as management consulting. It’s aiming to hire 19,000 people in the year ending May 29. Top recruiting priorities currently include cybersecurity, cloud computing, and analytics specialists.
  1. Apple – LinkedIn finds that Apple is committed to building an inclusive culture. Over half of its new hires in the U.S. represent historically underrepresented groups in tech — and the company claims to have achieved pay equity in every country where it operates—looking for an in? Apple has nearly 3,000 open jobs in the U.S. right now, ranging from its “genius” role at its retail stores to executive assistants and software engineers. 
  1. Walmart –  In February, the retail giant promised further raises to over 400,000 of its people and months later announced it would increase the share of its hourly store employees who work full-time to over 66% (up from 53% five years ago). Meanwhile, Walmart continues to think beyond the store as it ventures deeper into the e-commerce realm. Most in-demand jobs include Operational Specialist, Fulfillment Associate, and Replenishment Manager.
  1. EY – The accounting firm spent $450 million on employee training in 2020. And it is planning to hire over 15,000 people in the next year. With that much talent coming in, EY is focused on bringing in workers with diverse backgrounds, focusing on gender identity, race, and ethnicity, disability, LGBT+, and veterans. The most in-demand jobs include Strategy Director, Business Transformation Consultant, and Information Technology Consulting Manager.

Dec 22

The Most Innovative Tech Companies Based On Patent Analytics

The Most Innovative Tech Companies Based On Patent Analytics

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  • Microsoft, Apple, and IBM lead the world in hardware & software patent innovation according to PatentSight.
  • Samsung, Johnson & Johnson, LG Electronics. Alphabet, Qualcomm, Ford, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and VW are the ten most innovative companies in the world, according to PatentSight’s patent analytics research.
  • Ford leads the global automotive industry in patent innovation, due in large part to successful R&D efforts in autonomous driving.

These and many other fascinating insights are from Swiss consulting firm EconSight’s patent analytics research that first identified all the patents that are supposed to protect particularly relevant innovations – in this case, defined as innovations for the digitization of applied technologies – using the PatentSight database. Companies not only have to maintain their innovative strength; they also have to continue to expand in comparison to previous years to take a leading position in the ranking. For additional details on the methodology and to request the rank of your company, please visit the PatentSight Innovation Ranking 2019 site here.

Key insights from EconSight’s patent analytics research defining the most innovative companies globally include the following:

  • 38 of the most innovative companies in the world are based in the U.S, 21 in China, and 15 from Europe. Chinese followed by Japanese-based companies lead the world in electronics innovation as measured by the uniqueness of patents produced. U.S. companies lead the world in medical technology patent innovation. The following graphic compares the number of companies within the global top 100 ranking by country and industry for 2019.

  • In the U.S., tech companies dominate the top 10 most innovative companies in 2019. Alphabet, Qualcomm, Intel, Microsoft, Honeywell, Apple, and GE are producing the most unique, differentiated and value-adding patents based on EconSight’s methodology. Medical technology companies show the greatest growth in innovative patent production as the graphic below illustrates:

  • The world’s most innovative medical technology companies’ patent focus is on biosensors, surgical robotics, shortening the time-to-market for pharmaceutical drugs, and funding startup incubators that yield new patents. Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) multifaceted innovation strategy reflects the broader strategic vision of every medical technology company pursuing new intellectual property (IP) that leads to patent leadership. J&J acquired Auris Health and Verb Surgical, which is managed as a joint venture with Alphabet’s Verily medical division, which gives them a patent portfolio in healthcare intelligence. J&J has in total acquired over 300 companies in the medical technology industry according to PatentSight’s analysis. These acquisitions have moved them into biosensors, surgical robotics, and startups performing drug research.

The Most Innovative Tech Companies Based On Patent Analytics

  • Japanese robotics manufacturer Fanuc is the world’s most innovative automation technology company based on patent analysis. Since 2019 Fanuc has jumped 42 places in the ranking, from 61st to 19th. The global labor shortage in manufacturing is a contributing factor to the strong market demand Fanuc is seeing for all its robotics products and systems. The following are the top 25 robotics companies of 2019:

The Most Innovative Tech Companies Based On Patent Analytics

  • Ford leads the global automotive industry in patent innovation, while Volkswagen doubles down on patents over the last two years. Ford leads the world in patent innovation due to its rapid advances in autonomous vehicle development. Volkswagen’s rapid ascent in the automotive industry rankings has made them the most innovative company in Germany based on patent analytics this year. VW is investing in autonomous vehicles, and the networking of mobility participants, setting a solid foundation for future vehicle models today.

The Most Innovative Tech Companies Based On Patent Analytics

PatentSight Background

PatentSight – A Lexis Nexis company– specializes in cleaning and refining patent data and providing advanced patent analytics. Publicly available patent data simply cannot be used without qualitative preparation and correction. Due to the sheer mass (about 3.3 million new registrations in 2018 alone), all available patents cannot be viewed manually. Publications in many different languages and often very abstract contents make a manual review and evaluation difficult not only for laymen but also for experts. A further challenge is to level out the widely differing citation practices of national patent offices or to document the legal status of patents.

PatentSight, through manually supervised and scientifically developed algorithms, has best-in-class information on ownership data, going far beyond the testing standards recommended by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Moreover, PatentSight‘s proprietary patent valuation metrics reveal which patents are key, and which are superfluous. Based on citations, global protection, and several correction factors, EconSight leveraged these metrics to determine the most innovative companies.

Dec 20

The Best Software Companies To Work For In 2018, According To Glassdoor

These and other findings are based on an analysis of Glassdoor rankings of Software Magazine’s 2017 Software 500 list of the leading software companies globally. An Excel spreadsheet was first created using the 2017 Software 500 list as the basis of the Glassdoor company comparisons. Rankings from Glassdoor were added today for the (%) of employees who would recommend this company to a friend and (%) of employees who approve of the CEO.The Software 500 list was used to preserve impartiality in the rankings.  The original data set the analysis is based on is available for download here in Microsoft Excel format.

To gain greater insights into the data sets a series of cross-tabulations and correlation analyses were done using IBM SPSS Statistics Version 25. The analysis shows CEOs have an even greater impact on improving their company’s recommendation scores, rising to 82% this year from 70% in 2015. The analysis also showed that companies who flood Glassdoor with fake reviews hit a wall around 10 posts, down from 15 in 2015. This doesn’t stop some companies from offering cash, prizes, and merchandise to their employees in exchange for positive reviews. Relying on Glassdoor and ideally in-office visits to see how a company culture is and how your potential boss treats others is ideal.

The following are the highest rated software companies to work for in 2018, based the (%) of employees who would recommend the company to a friend:

The following companies scored between 80% and 89% on the rating % of employees who would recommend this company to a friend:

Please see the entire data set for the rankings of all companies included in the Software Magazine 500 here in Microsoft Excel format.

Jul 3

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Roundup Of Analytics, Big Data & Business Intelligence Forecasts And Market Estimates, 2014

NYC SkylineFrom manufacturers looking to gain greater insights into streamlining production, reducing time-to-market and increasing product quality to financial services firms seeking to upsell clients, analytics is now essential for any business looking to stay competitive.  Marketing is going through its own transformation, away from traditional tactics to analytics- and data-driven strategies that deliver measurable results.

Analytics and the insights they deliver are changing competitive dynamics daily by delivering greater acuity and focus.  The high level of interest and hype surrounding analytics, Big Data and business intelligence (BI) is leading to a proliferation of market projections and forecasts, each providing a different perspective of these markets.

Presented below is a roundup of recent forecasts and market estimates:

  • The Advanced and Predictive Analytics (APA) software market is projected from grow from $2.2B in 2013 to $3.4B in 2018, attaining a 9.9% CAGR in the forecast period.  The top 3 vendors in 2013 based on worldwide revenue were SAS ($768.3M, 35.4% market share), IBM ($370.3M, 17.1% market share) and Microsoft ($64.9M, 3% market share).  IDC commented that simplified APA tools that provide less flexibility than standalone statistical models tools yet have more intuitive graphical user interfaces and easier-to-use features are fueling business analysts’ adoption.  Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=249054
  • A.T. Kearney forecasts global spending on Big Data hardware, software and services will grow at a CAGR of 30% through 2018, reaching a total market size of $114B.  The average business expects to spend $8M on big data-related initiatives this year. Source: Beyond Big: The Analytically Powered Organization.
  • Cloud-based Business Intelligence (BI) is projected to grow from $.75B in 2013 to $2.94B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 31%.  Redwood Capital’s recent Sector Report on Business Intelligence  (free, no opt in) provides a thorough analysis of the current and future direction of BI.  Redwood Capital segments the BI market into traditional, mobile, cloud and social business intelligence.   The following two charts from the Sector Report on Business Intelligence  illustrate how Redwood Capital sees the progression of the BI market through 2018.

redwood capital global intelligence market size

  • Enterprises getting the most value out of analytics and BI have leaders that concentrate more on collaboration, instilling confidence in their teams, and creating an active analytics community, while laggards focus on technology alone.  A.T. Kearney and Carnegie Mellon University recently surveyed 430 companies around the world, representing a wide range of geographies and industries, for the inaugural Leadership Excellence in Analytic Practices (LEAP) study.  You can find the study here.  The following is a graphic from the study comparing the characteristics of leaders and laggards’ strategies for building a culture of analytics excellence.

leaders and laggards2

  • The worldwide market for Big Data related hardware, software and professional services is projected to reach $30B in 2014.  Signals and System Telecom forecasts the market will attain a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17% over the next 6 years.  Signals and Systems Telecom’s report forecasts Big Data will be a $76B market by 2020.  Source: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/s2t239/the_big_data
  • Big Data is projected to be a $28.5B market in 2014, growing to $50.1B in 2015 according to Wikkbon.  Their report, Big Data Vendor Revenue and Market Forecast 2013-2017 is outstanding in its accuracy and depth of analysis.  The following is a graphic from the study, illustrating Wikibon’s Big Data market forecast broken down by market component through 2017.

Big Data Wikibon

  • SAP, IBM, SAS, Microsoft, Oracle, Information Builders, MicroStrategy, and Actuate are market leaders in BI according to Forrester’s latest Wave analysis of BI platforms.  Their report, The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms, Q4 2013 (free PDF, no opt in, courtesy of SAS) provides a thorough analysis of 11 different BI software providers using the research firm’s 72-criteria evaluation methodology.
  • Amazon Web Services, Cloudera, Hortonworks, IBM, MapR Technologies, Pivotal Software, and Teradata are Big Data Hadoop market leaders according to Forrester’s latest Wave analysis of Hadoop Solutions.  Their report, The Forrester Wave™: Big Data Hadoop Solutions, Q1 2014 (free PDF, no opt in, courtesy of MapR Technologies) provides a thorough analysis of nine different Big Data Hadoop software providers using the research firm’s 32-criteria evaluation methodology.
  • IDC forecasts the server market for high performance data analysis (HPDA) will grow at a 23.5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) reaching $2.7B by 2018.  In the same series of studies IDC forecasts the related storage market will expand to $1.6B also in 2018. HPDA is the term IDC created to describe the formative market for big data workloads using HPC. Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24938714
  • Global Big Data technology and services revenue will grow from $14.26B in 2014 to $23.76B in 2016, attaining a compound annual growth rate of 18.55%.  These figures and a complete market analysis are available in IDC’s Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012 – 2016 Forecast.  You can download the full report here (free, no opt-in): Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012 – 2016 Forecast.

big data analytics by market size

  • Financial Services firms are projected to spend $6.4B in Big Data-related hardware, software and services in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 22% through 2020.  Software and internet-related companies are projected to spend $2.8B in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 26% through 2020.  These and other market forecasts and projections can be found in Bain & Company’s Insights Analysis, Big Data: The Organizational Challenge.  An infographic of their research results are shown below.

Big-Data-infographic-Bain & Company

potential payback of big data initiatives

Mar 3

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The Best Cloud Computing Companies And CEOs To Work For In 2014

Job Growth2014 continues to be a year marked by the accelerating hiring cycles across nearly all cloud computing companies.

Signing bonuses of $3K to $5K for senior engineers and system design specialists are becoming common, and the cycles from screening to interviews to offers is shortening.  The job market in the cloud computing industry is leaning in favor of applicants who have a strong IT background in systems integration, legacy IT expertise, business analysis and in many positions, programming as well.

One of the most common questions and requests I receive from readers is who the best companies are to work for.  I’ve put together the following analysis based on the latest Computer Reseller News list The 100 Coolest Cloud Computing Vendors Of 2014.  

Using the CRN list as a baseline to compare the Glassdoor.com scores of the (%) of employees who would recommend this company to a friend and (%) of employees who approve of the CEO, the following analysis was completed.  You can find the original data here .  There are many companies listed on the CRN list that don’t have than many or any entries on Glassdoor and they were excluded from the rankings below.  You can find companies excluded here. If the image below is not visible in your browser, you can view the rankings here.

results

The highest rated CEOs on Glassdoor as of February 23rd include the following:

  • Jeremy Roche of FinancialForce.com (100%)
  • Robert Reid, Intacct (100%)
  • Randy Bias, Cloudscaling (100%)
  • Sridhar Vembu, Zoho (98%)
  • James M. Whitehurst, Red Hat (96%)
  • Larry Page, Google (95%)
  • Christian Chabot, Tableau Software (95%)
  • Aneel Bhusri, Workday (94%)
  • Bill McDermott & Jim Hagemann Snabe, SAP (93%)
  • Marc Benioff, Salesforce (93%)
  • David Friend, Carbonite (93%)

Feb 16

Best- And Worst-Performing Cloud Computing Stocks Feb. 10th To Feb. 14th And Year-to-Date

cloud computing forecast update 2012The five highest performing cloud computing stocks year-to-date in the Cloud Computing Index are Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM), F5 Networks (NASDAQ: FFIV), Juniper Networks (NYSE:JNPR), Fusion-IO (NYSE:FIO), Qualys (NASDAQ:QYLS) and Workday (NYSE:WDAY).  A $10K investment in Akamai on January 2nd of this year is worth $12,901 and $10K invested in F5 Networks is worth $12,509 as of market close yesterday.   IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP share prices are included for comparison.

best performing YTD Feb 14

Akamai delivered better-than-respected results for their latest fiscal quarter and year, gaining $436M in revenues for fiscal Q4 and $1.578B for fiscal year.  Media Deliver Solutions revenue increased 19% year over year to $207.5M in revenue.  On their latest earnings call earlier this month, Akamai also says that traffic for gaming, social media, software and video downloads all continue to accelerate.  Support and Service revenues grew 36% year over year, reaching $36.3M in fiscal Q4, and Performance And Security revenue reached $192.2M, increasing 18% year over year.  Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal Q4 was $192M.

The following graphic compares how $10,000 invested on January 2nd of this year in the highest performing cloud computing stocks, in addition to IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP are valued today.

total dollar value 10K feb 14 2014

Please see the full Cloud Computing Index for market caps, average volumes, 52-week high and low share prices, Earnings per Share, Price/Earnings Ratio, and Beta.  I am using the Google Finance Portfolio option to track the performance of these stocks.  For information on how this index was created, see the description at the end of this post.  I do not hold equity positions or work for any of the companies mentioned in this blog post or included in the Cloud Computing Index and this post is not meant to provide investment advice.  It is simply a glimpse into the performance of these company’s stock prices over time.  The following is this week’s Cloud Computing Index.

Cloud Computing Stock Index February 14

Best Performing Cloud Computing Stocks, February 10th to February 14th, 2014

Capturebest performing for the week feb 14

Worst Performing Cloud Computing Stocks, February 10th to February 14th, 2014

worst performing for the week feb 14

Best Performing Cloud Computing Stocks In 2014

best performing YTD Feb 14

Worst Performing Cloud Computing Stocks In 2014

worst performing YTD Feb 14

Comparing Cumulative Stock Performance Performance of the Cloud Computing Index over the last year is compared to NetSuite, Salesforce, IBM, Oracle and SAP is below. This index has been up 27.58% over the last year, with NetSuite (NYSE:N) up 63.84%, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) up 43.50%, IBM (NYSE:IBM) down 8.59%, Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) up 9.10% and SAP (NYSE:SAP) up .14%. Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.

trending

Specifics on the Cloud Computing Stock Index I used The Cloud Times 100 as the basis of the index, selecting twenty companies all of which are publically traded.  The latest edition of the Cloud Computing Index is shown here.  The filter applied to these companies is that 50% or more of their revenues are generated from cloud-based applications, infrastructure and services

Oct 6

451 Research Summit: Enterprises Competing With Digital Infrastructure & Cloud Computing

bellagio1Enterprises are defining their own cloud strategies, their own way, ignoring vendor hype and requiring metrics that reflect security (61%), mean-time-to-recover from outages (57%), number of data center outages (51%).

This and many insights were gained from attending the 451 Research Hosting and Cloud Transformation Summit at the Bellagio Resort & Casino in Las Vegas last week. 451 Research provided a free pass to the event but did not cover travel, hotel or meals.

What’s refreshing about 451 Group’s conferences is that each of their companies including 451 Research, Uptime Institute, and Yankee Group rely on solid methodologies to research their coverage areas and markets. This results in presentations that are packed with insight and are based on a solid foundation of interviews and research.  I had a chance to catch up with SoftLayer’s Lance Crosby, Simon West and Andre Fuochi for an update on how the IBM acquisition is going, which is summarized in this post as well.  The slides shown are from Michelle Bailey, Vice President, Datacenter Initiatives and Digital Infrastructure’s excellent presentation given at the conference.

The following are the key take-aways from the summit:

  • Enterprises are defining their own cloud strategies, their own way, ignoring vendor hype and requiring metrics that reflect security (61%), mean-time-to-recover from outages (57%), number of data center outages (51%). When asked which metrics beyond Service Level Agreements (SLAs) service providers should report, respondents to the 451 Research survey provided the following insights, shown below:

  • The top three SaaS applications in two years will be for the enterprise, business support, and database platforms per 451 Research’s latest survey:

  • Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) growth is critical to off-premises hosting deployments succeeding in the next two years, as the following graphic illustrates:

  • 80%of enterprises would experience a severe impact to their operations if there was a cloud outage of just a day which make security and availability must-haves for any hosting and cloud services provider.  The following graphic breaks down the impact of service provider outage by time:
  • Worldwide Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) is projected to grow from $4.475B in 2013 to $10.23B in 2016, with Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) growing from $2.23B in 2013 to $5.24B in 2016.  The following slide provides a breakout of forecast categories by hosting and cloud business categories:

Why Enterprises Need A Digital Infrastructure Playbook

The focal point of the summit was the launch of the digital infrastructure playbook.  Tony Bishop, Chief Strategy Officer, The 451 Group introduced the Digital Enterprise Playbook Series which you can download here. His presentation provided insights into how enterprises are struggling to align legacy IT, infrastructure including data centers, cloud, applications and system management to business goals while becoming more agile.

I had a chance to speak with Tony after his presentation and asked him why enterprises need a digital infrastructure playbook now.   “Digital transformation is breaking down the barriers to sustainable global prosperity by shifting power towards the individual,” he said. “This revolution will transform how enterprises create and deliver value. Digital enterprises will pursue and build dynamic infrastructure capabilities to innovate and differentiate customer experience, constantly empower employees and disseminate prescriptive knowledge across the enterprise.”

One of the most passionate and knowledgeable people I’ve ever met in infrastructure and IT research is Martin McCarthy, Chairman and CEO, The 451 Group.  He told me he’s seeing more pressure than ever for edge-to-core integration in the enterprise, which is forcing CIOs to be strategists over experts in cost reduction.  “Digital infrastructure will be the backbone enabling enterprise transformation in coming years. To blaze this trail, organizations need an ‘edge to core’ digital infrastructure playbook,” he said.   Presented below is a page from the Digital Enterprise Playbook Series:

The eight-striper wordmark of IBM, the letters...

IBM SoftLayer Update

  • IBM’s acquisition of SoftLayer is going excellently and many IBM divisions now are actively collaborating with the Softlayer team to migrate existing apps and develop new ones. Thank you Lance Crosby, Simon West and Andre Fuochi for the update provided at the conference, it was invaluable.
  • Softlayer will be the foundation for a global cloud services infrastructure capable of delivering applications across multiple continents and thousands of users within hours, not days.  Lance Crosby explained the vision IBM has of delivering a continual stream of new applications and services over the global cloud services infrastructure network, which has the potential to turn into a high margin business quickly.
  • Softlayer is assisting with making the IBM Request for Proposal (RFP) more efficient based on their deep expertise in this critical area. Based on personal experience it can take anywhere from several weeks to up to several months for an RFP response.  SoftLayer has devised processes and systems that make RFP response times a fraction of that.
  • The majority of the top ten customers Softlayer has today are running large-scale clusters of Hadoop, with 40 Hadoop clusters being commonplace.  Lance Crosby mentioned these customers are very sophisticated in their use of Hadoop and many of them are in consumer products companies, looking to gain greater insights into customer behavior.
  • Bare metal servers running Hadoop are one of the fastest growing areas of the Softlayer business right now.  Simon West made an excellent point that running Hadoop on bare metal servers instead of through virtualized environment leads to a higher level of throughput, given Softlayer’s internal testing results.  Bare metal servers continue to accelerate in the industry and Softlayer’s executives confirmed they are seeing an acceleration of demand in this area.
  • An additional six data centers are planned for 2014, and SoftLayer has the capability to build one data center every two months of needed.  When asked what the global expansion plans are for SoftLayer since the acquisition, Lance Crosby told me London and Germany are of primary interest.  He also added that whenever the demand for a given nation reached between four and five thousand servers, Softlayer and IBM will consider building a data center in-country.

Apr 4

21 Most Admired Companies Making IT A Competitive Advantage

time-and-IT-competitive-advantage1-300x215All enterprises, regardless of what they produce or the services they deliver, are really information businesses.

The accuracy, speed and precision of IT systems means the difference between winning or losing customers, keeping supply chains profitable, and solidly translating new concepts into revenue-producing products and services.  The world’s best-run services businesses have customer-driven IT as part of their DNA; it is very much who these companies are internally.

In the recently published Garter report CEO and Senior Executive Survey 2013: 21 Top Companies Admired for Competitive IT  completed between October and December, 2012, which was part of the 2013 CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey, C-level respondents were asked to name the companies they most admired in terms of their ability to apply IT-related business capabilities for competitive advantage.   Respondents were also asked to limit their responses only to their own and related industries.

391 respondents participated in the survey with 147 being CEOs, 149, CFOs; 49, COOs; and 46 being board members including Chairman of the board and president.  Geographic distribution included 152 respondents from North America; 124 from Europe; 78 from Asia/Pacific; 20 from Brazil; 12 from South Africa; and 5 from the Middle East with minimum company size being $250M in annual sales or above.

The following is the list of the world’s most admired companies using IT for competitive advantage.

Most Admired Companies Making IT A Competitive Advantage

Accenture
Amazon
Apple
Cleveland Clinic
General Electric
Goldman Sachs
Google
Hospital Corporation of America
IBM
Intermountain Healthcare
JP Morgan Chase
Kaiser Permanente
Mayo Clinic
Microsoft
Nestle
Proctor & Gamble
Progressive Insurance
Schlumberger
Target
Toyota
Wells Fargo

Key Take-Aways

  • Customer-driven IT is the single most admired trait of all 21 companies in the list.  Associated with this attribute is the proven ability of these enterprises to manage complex e-commerce systems & platforms, support multichannel management, in addition to continually show the ability to innovate quickly.
  • Enterprises need to consider how the business successes their investments in  IT are enabling can be used for branding and recruitment.   Providing benchmark performance data and stories of how IT helped create entirely new markets and solve customer problems needs to be used for recruiting.  Many of the 21 companies mentioned are doing this, using success stories as a catalyst for driving recruitment efforts for analytics, cloud computing and systems integration experts.
  • Don’t underestimate the disruptive power of cloud computing and mobility to completely re-order enterprise systems quickly.  Gartner mentions that there are enterprises whose IT organizations would have made the list had they not slowed down.  While not directly stated, Gartner warns IT departments to not become complacent over time.  From personal experience working in IT departments however, it is clear that complacency is a leading career hazard.  It’s imperative for CIOs to keep challenging their organizations to stay intensely focused on new developments, seeking out how they can be used to strengthen business strategies.
  • Four of the top five factors that most impressed respondents about the admired companies are customer-related.  Customer-facing IT (15%); followed by an integrated/standardized/unified IT organization and process framework (13%); exceptional use of CRM (11%); customer-centered innovation (9%);  and product design & offerings (9%) are the most mentioned attributes of the highest-performing companies. Multiple responses were allowed to this area of the survey.  The following graphic provides an analysis of which factors most impressed the C-level executives who were respondents to the survey.

What Impressed Business Leaders Most

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