UK technology company ANS recently surveyed IT decision makers to investigate how technology impacts the growth of UK enterprises.

The report, conducted in partnership with YouGov, revealed 48% think not having access to the latest technology is limiting their business growth.

It also found that 81% believed limited investment in technology restricts the wider growth of UK businesses, with lack of budget, staffing issues, and access to new technologies as key concerns.

“In an ideal world, any business regardless of size or sector would have the opportunity to foster growth. Unfortunately, this is not the case,” explains ANS’s CEO, Richard Thompson. 

Lack of internal resources limiting technology adoption

Most mid-sized enterprises are looking not only to embrace the potential benefits of nascent technologies like generative AI, but to fully leverage widely-available – but expensive – solutions such as cloud. 

However many are being hampered in their ability to integrate these technologies as a result of affordability and access to talent that can fully utilise and maintain these kinds of technological solutions.

ANS’ survey supports this, stating that 42% of respondents believe the rising costs of doing business is limiting plans for digital transformation, as internal budgets are becoming strained. 

In addition, 45% of IT decision makers said sourcing staff is a challenge, caused by a shortage of tech talent and professional development within the sector.

The creates a competitiveness problem as larger businesses have readier means to utilise new technologies and attract talent. And, as we can see in this data, it’s an issue that has the potential to become further exacerbated by nascent technologies such as generative AI.

Concerns about ongoing costs after cloud migration

Although the report uncovered an appetite for embracing cloud technologies, only 25% of mid-sized enterprises have migrated less than 20% of their business. A further 11% have not migrated at all, with 29% worried about ongoing costs afterwards.

“Most companies know the benefits of moving to the cloud – security, scalability, resilience – but hesitancy comes from concerns about having the skills and resources to manage the environment after migration,” said Robert Cottrill, technology director at ANS.

“As barriers to adoption are varied, it’s clear more needs to be done to enable all mid-sized enterprises to migrate.”

Mixed attitudes towards cybersecurity 

The report also uncovered there are mixed attitudes towards cybersecurity.

43% of mid-sized enterprises are concerned about experiencing a cyber-attack, whereas 14% aren’t worried at all. 

“It is surprising that more mid-sized enterprises are not concerned about cyber attacks as every business and sector is at risk,” said Stephen Crow, head of defensive security at ANS.

“But factors such as alert fatigue may come into play here, as hacking stories have become much more prevalent in the media.”

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Looking to the future

The highest investment priorities over the next two years for the mid-sized companies surveyed were found to be cybersecurity (58%) cloud computing (58%) and tech training (38%).

The link between technology and growth is clear, with the ANS report encouraging mid-sized enterprises to adopt a more holistic approach to digital transformation.