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CompTIA launches tool to measure emerging tech-readiness
Tue, 25th Feb 2020
FYI, this story is more than a year old

CompTIA has announced the launch of its new online assessment tool, which analyses whether organisations are in a position to take advantage of emerging tech.

Created by the CompTIA Emerging Technology Community, the Emerging Technology Innovation Assessment helps businesses assess which areas of their operations are in need of an overhaul which can be facilitated by new and emerging technologies.

CompTIA says the assessment will also help to identify what steps are needed to ensure organisations expand their business.

“The excitement generated by new business technology solutions is often tempered by uncertainty over whether a company has the pieces in place to support them,” says CompTIA chair of emerging technology community and Microsoft director of partner incentive strategy and program design Michael Haines.

“The assessment we've created provides decision-makers with the information they'll need to determine their organisation's state of readiness to leverage new innovations,” says Haines.

The assessment asks businesses to self-evaluate themselves in three areas:
  1. Does the organisation have a company culture that fosters an innovative environment built around investment, leadership commitment and employee collaboration and empowerment?
     
  2. Is an organisational infrastructure of strategy, vision, alignment, adoption and communication in place to support the adoption of new innovations?
     
  3. Do the daily activities of the business provide employees with the freedom to work in new ways and create different business outcomes?
     

Each of these categories is scored on a 0-15 scale to determine the company's readiness for innovation.

Strengths, weaknesses and recommendations for next steps are included in the synopsis that each company receives upon completing the assessment.

Recent research from CompTIA found a majority of executives (54%) have a positive view of emerging technologies, while 21% expressed equal parts excitement and trepidation.

This trepidation is not an uncommon factor in many organisations' strategy to migrate to emerging technology, with several reasons cited for businesses that prefer a go-slow approach.

Some of these justifications include budget constraints, risk aversion, the lack of a clear business case and confusion about available options.

“Customer confusion and uncertainty is understandable given the dizzying speed of innovation and the proliferation of technology options,” says CompTIA vice chair of the emerging technology community and Smith.ai head of growth and education Maddy Martin.

“We believe the innovation assessment tool can bring some clarity to the conversation about business and emerging tech.

The launch of the assessment tool comes after a report earlier this month from CompTIA which analysed the usage rates of differing new technology around the world.

The study asserted that the emerging technologies with the highest rates of implementation globally are the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data.