Rob McGillen, global head of technology at Grant Thornton, asks how important ICT infrastructure to business growth prospects and which economies are performing best.
Poised to be every bit as disruptive as the internet revolution, is your business ready for the rise of the sharing economy?
Technology is at the cutting edge of efforts to make growth more sustainable. As the global population swells and more people move into higher consumption classes, the demand for food, for energy, for water, will all increase. But the resources our planet offers will not. Clearly the status quo is not sustainable.
Grant Thornton looks at the potential impact of IFRS 15 'Revenue from Contracts with Customers' for revenue recognition in the software and cloud services industries.
The technology sector is riding the crest of a wave. We interview approximately 150 technology companies around the world every quarter through our International Business Report (IBR) and what’s struck me since the beginning of the year is how bullish the leaders of these companies are about their growth prospects.
The technology industry is synonymous with innovation, fuelled by investments and a continual focus on research and development (R&D). By its very nature it is at the forefront of change. Those businesses which fail to keep up with technological change and stay current with consumer requirements are left behind.
Scaling a tech business is like walking a burning tightrope. The faster you go, the more you risk falling off. But go too slowly and the rope will burn through.
Business-minded technologists have always planned for global business empires. It used to take decades before they could grow globally. Today, it can be more or less instantaneous – creating a new set of opportunities and threats.
For tech companies, the regulatory environment is tougher now than ever before. To protect national interests, governments are using compliance to restrict companies that could potentially disrupt established industries which can creating a knock on effect for tech companies. Rapidly expanding companies also face a wider range of individual regulations as they expand into new territories, be it employment law, taxation, product safety or licensing.