Introduction
As organizations strive for growth in a challenging economic environment, every investment decision counts. Business leaders across industries are all asking the same question:
Which workplace technology investments actually drive growth, keep employees productive and deliver competitive advantage?
New research from Unisys reveals a clear divide. Some organizations are thriving — exceeding revenue targets, outperforming on innovation and keeping employees satisfied. Others are falling behind. What separates them?
Our research identifies two distinct groups of organizations with dramatically different approaches and outcomes — and a clear winning strategy.
Productivity Leaders are organizations that, regardless of market conditions, have continued to navigate the digital workplace services environment successfully.
To qualify as a Productivity Leader, organizations had to meet four criteria:
Exceed expectations on workforce productivity
Rank employee productivity as a top key performance indicator (KPI) for measuring return on investment (ROI)
See improvement in day-to-day productivity
Lose less than three hours of productivity time a month to technology issues and downtime (the average is four hours)
These 106 organizations are growing faster, innovating more and keeping employees happier than their competitors. What separates them? They're moving faster on AI adoption, asking employees what they need and measuring success by human outcomes instead of just uptime metrics. Meanwhile, 137 organizations are doing the opposite — these are the Late Adopters, and they're falling behind.
Productivity Leaders are twice as likely as Late Adopters to exceed sales and revenue expectations (65% compared with 33%).
of Productivity Leaders outperform on product and service innovation, compared with 17% of Late Adopters.
of Productivity Leaders have improved cybersecurity, compared with 42% of Late Adopters.
of Productivity Leaders have improved ROI, compared with 41% of Late Adopters.
While economic uncertainty ranks as the number one barrier preventing greater investment in digital workplace services, and managing budgets remains important, the findings show that commitment pays off.
In total, 70% of executives already recognize that digital workplace services are critical to their long-term business resilience, so organizations must find a balance — prioritizing strategic investment that delivers measurable returns.
Digital workplace services create an integrated environment designed to foster collaboration, enhance employee engagement and agility and harness advanced technologies for optimal productivity. This ecosystem seamlessly combines various applications, data, devices and services, which work in unison to offer a streamlined and empowering digital experience.
of Productivity Leaders say that generative AI plays a critical role in ensuring business continuity during tech downtime, compared with only 35% of Late Adopters.
say that generative AI reduces the burden on IT teams, compared to 42% of Late Adopters.
have increased investment in generative AI in the past 12 months, compared with just 32% of Late Adopters.
plan to accelerate AI business transformation in the coming year, compared with only 38% of Late Adopters.
are experimenting with agentic AI to see how it can augment traditional support models, compared with only 20% of Late Adopters.
