Press release
“LIFE 2 – Working connected in business and society” study published

“LIFE 2 – Working connected in business and society” study published: information and communication technology plays vital role for economic growth and society

Immense importance of information and communication technology (ICT) for the overall economy and companies, continues to rise – Flexibility, cooperation and mobility are major ICT trends – ICT solutions also with great potential for growth areas, such as transport, healthcare or energy

“Digital added value” through information and communication technologies (ICT) is playing an ever more important role in the worlds of business and work. At company level, ICT is a crucial factor for innovation and competitiveness: Major trends like cloud computing, virtual cooperation, decentralized working, and green IT will continue to establish themselves on the market. In addition, intelligent ICT solutions will play a vital role in the future development of important wider social functions such as education, energy supply and healthcare.

These findings and numerous other detailed insights into the considerable role of ICT derive from the international “LIFE 2 – Working connected in business and society” study, published on September 7, 2010 by Professor Tobias Kretschmer, Director of the Institute for Communication Economics at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, and author of the study.  “Information and communication technology is a crucial lever for all sectors. Furthermore, ICT is a particularly important catalyst for growth areas, such as transport, healthcare and education,” said Professor Kretschmer, summing up the findings of the study. Analyses show that, over the next few years, ICT will play an increasingly important role as a growth driver, while trends such as cloud computing or greater mobile data access will improve flexibility and efficiency.

As part of the study, Professor Kretschmer, in collaboration with ‘zehnvier’ strategy consultants, surveyed executives involved in information and communication technology (ICT) purchase decisions, professional ICT users, and private PC users in the markets of Germany, the UK, France, Spain and the USA.

The study has a comprehensive design that combines broad quantitative surveys of a total of 1,559 ICT executives, 1,009 IT users in companies and 1,336 consumers with a qualitative survey of expert opinions from science and industry.

Key study results:

  • Almost two-thirds of the executives (64%) believe that ICT plays a key economic role as an enabler of new business models. In Germany, ICT executives in some industries expect ICT-generated growth impulses of up to 11 percent and cost-reduction potential of up to 17 percent in the next 5 years.
  • 79 percent of executives believe that ICT already has very important or important strategic relevance for their enterprise. Significant influence on the enterprise’s ability to compete: Two-thirds of ICT executives (67%) believe that ICT will have a significant influence on their enterprise’s future competitiveness through the lever “Innovation”; in the United States 76 percent believe this.
  • Flexibility, mobility and collaboration are for many ICT executives the key trends in the coming years.IT security is a basic precondition: For more than half of ICT executives (54%) it one of the top 3 trends. Nearly one-third (29%) consider green IT one of the most important issues.
  • 81 percent of the ICT executives surveyed believe that cloud computing will establish itself on the market in the next few years. More than half (51%) expect cloud computing to become the dominant method of sourcing ICT services. 77 percent of the IT executives in whose companies cloud computing is used expect investment in this area to rise.
  • The significance of virtual collaboration will continue to rise: Six in ten ICT executives believe that the use of virtual collaboration will substantially reduce development costs in their company (62%) and significantly reduce their time-to-market (60%).
  • Two-thirds of ICT executives (67%) believe that the importance of decentralized working in their enterprise will rise (strongly) in the next 5 years. Consumers also want more mobile access. Security strategies need to be increasingly extended to mobile devices: 66 percent of ICT executives consider role-based access very interesting or interesting.
  • ICT executives expect new ICT solutions to bring great change in all the industries and sectors surveyed, and particularly in public safety (e.g. by networking public authorities), education (eLearning), automotive, traffic and transport (e.g. traffic control systems) and energy (smart metering, green IT).
  • In the transport industry, ICT executives believe that ICT will make a great contribution to solving key challenges in “safety” and “avoiding overload.” German ICT executives (automotive) believe that Web-based in-vehicle entertainment systems will become standard in future.
  • Three in ten ICT executives (31%) in the health sector believe that the biggest advantage of more ICT in health care will be better quality of treatment. Three-quarters of consumers (77%) believe that an electronic health card will bring significant benefits for patients.
  • 70 percent of ICT executives expect green IT to play a (very) important role for their enterprise in 5 years. Although the majority of ICT executives (57%) consider the cost-saving potential of green IT most important, only 24 percent have prepared a business case study for their company. Consumers are very interested in smart metering: 68 percent believe that smart metering will play an important role in their home in 5 years.

 

About the study:

The LIFE 2 study is a combined collection and summary of expert opinions, online surveys and personal telephone interviews.

The study was designed and conducted by Professor Tobias Kretschmer, Director of the Institute for Communication Economics at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich collaborating with ‘zehnvier’ strategy consultants. In the study, a total of 1,559 ICT executives, 1,009 IT users in companies and 1,336 consumers in five countries were surveyed online. In addition, 101 personal telephone interviews were conducted with ICT executives from the healthcare, transport, automotive and public sectors. Publication of the results of the study is supported by Deutsche Telekom AG. The report is available on the Internet site www.studie-life.de.

Questions regarding study results or methodology:

Prof. Dr. Tobias Kretschmer
Institute for Communication Economics (ICE)
Munich School of Management, University of Munich
E-mail:t.kretschmer@lmu.de

Please address any queries to:

Deutsche Telekom AG
Corporate Communications
Tel.: +49 (0) 228 1814949
E-mail: presse@telekom.de

Professor Dr. Tobias Kretschmer
Director of the Institute for Communications Economics at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Prof. Dr. Tobias Kretschmer studied business sciences at the University of St. Gallen and the London Business School, where he also received his doctorate in 2001. After completing a research fellowship at the INSEAD, Fontainebleau, he worked as a lecturer in Strategy and Economics at the London School of Economics from   September 2001. In October 2006, Tobias Kretschmer moved from London to Munich to take on the position of Chair of the Communications Economics Department at the Ludwig Maximilian University, a department that had been initiated by the Deutsche Telekom Foundation. Dr. Kretschmer also works as a visiting professor of strategy and microeconomics at the MBA programs of the HEC School of Management, Paris and the University of Lisbon (AESE) as well as a research professor for the Ifo Institute. Tobias Kretschmer lives in Munich with his wife and daughter.

The Institute for Communications Economics (ICE) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich headed by Dr. Kretschmer carries out research into economic issues in high-tech markets as well as other business and management topics related to organizations. Currently the research focus is on examining telecommunications markets, software and hardware industries and the economy of organizations. For more information, go to www.ice.bwl.uni-muenchen.de.

The Ludwig Maximilian University is a leading European university with a tradition going back over 500 years. It continues to take top positions in national and international university rankings and has received subsidies since 2006 within the scope of the German government’s Excellence Initiative, a Germany-wide competition for the promotion of top research.