The software industry is in an era of explosive growth. Though welcome, the growth disrupts the status quo and causes significant transformation of companies’ operating infrastructures. A key finding in our study shows software executives are struggling with maintaining equilibrium among operational and investing priorities that push the companies in opposite directions at the same time.
This report is the third in Sand Hill Group’s ongoing series of software industry CEO / CFO Outlook studies since 2010. Insights for this report came from top executives in an online survey and several follow-up in-depth phone interviews. CEOs and presidents comprised 50 percent of the survey respondents; 17 percent were CFOs. CEOs comprised 70 percent of those interviewed by phone.
This report on the findings of the 2014 CEO / CFO Outlook study is intended to give software company executives and investors directional insight as they make decisions for the next two years.
You’ll learn valuable information on such aspects as how to:
- Areas of growth opportunity in 2014 to 2016
- Types of software projects that will be the biggest drivers in customer spending over the next 12 months
- Biggest influences driving customer software spending in the next 12 months
- The changes software companies have undertaken in social media and collaboration tools over the past year
- Top growth strategies and opportunities over the next 12 months per type of software company
- The areas of greatest operational change and the complexities involved in prioritization and decision making in those areas
- The competitive impact (opportunity or threat) of Internet of Things software to date and expected over the next two years
- Talent challenges
- Most important measurements used to track business and how that has changed over the past three years
- Delivery and deployment (licensing) methods trends
- Pricing pressures and use of performance-based pricing models
- Concerns about IPO and API trends
- and much more . . .
The 33-page report is packed with charts on research findings along with comments from CEOs and CFOs.