Survey: In Spite of Advances and Investment in Technology Global Productivity Remains Flat

Accenture report indicates gains in productivity are not being realized even with application of advanced technology.

• Despite major advances in technology over the past decade, global productivity remains flat with 40% of large companies we analyzed reporting negative growth.
• However, the top 25% of companies are seeing real gains – boosting productivity over 8% per year. These leaders are widening the productivity gap and gaining a competitive edge.

Accenture's recently released report, The Productivity Payoff: Unlock Competitiveness with Gen AI, reveals that many companies are not seeing the productivity payoff yet, despite major technological advances. In fact, productivity growth has remained relatively flat globally, and 40% of the large companies analyzed recorded negative annual productivity growth. That said, 25% of companies have increased their productivity by 8% per year.

The research is based on a survey of senior executives from 2,000 major companies across 18 industries and 11 countries paired with analysis on over 60,000 earnings calls, generative AI productivity modeling and more.

The Productivity Payoff – Key findings:

• Productivity concerns and bright spots: Despite 40% of large companies recording negative annual productivity growth, there is a portion (25%) that have increased their productivity significantly – by more than 8% per year. These leaders are pursuing a strategy of cost and productivity reinvention and fueling their competitive advantage with generative AI and other advances in technology.
• Productivity gap escalates: The gap between high and low productivity growth companies has doubled in the past eight years – and quadrupled in the last four. The report analyzed what set leaders apart and found, for example, they invest 2x as much in technology per employee and prioritize ongoing skills training, among other factors.
• Productivity and the bottom line: Companies with high productivity growth aren't cutting costs but instead they grow revenues faster than their spend and invest strategically in key areas. For instance, for every 1% increase in total spend on productivity initiatives, they improve their revenues by 1.3%.
• Impact of generative AI on productivity: Generative AI has the potential to transform productivity within companies, offering the ability to save over 12% of working hours while improving the quality of outputs by 8.5%.
• Defining and measuring productivity differently: Productivity leaders look beyond costs and piecemeal productivity, focusing also on output quality. A growing number are adopting these productivity performance measures, yet only 36% of executives surveyed use quality improvements as a measure of their productivity programs' success.

The Productivity Payoff: Unlock Competitiveness with Gen AI report can be viewed here.