Workato, the leading and fastest-growing enterprise automation platform, unveiled its first annual "State of Business Technology Report," exploring the emergence of a new technology role within organizations, Business Technology, also called Business Applications or Business Systems. These are the people charged with rolling out apps, integrations, and automations in their companies. The rapidly growing field resides within IT and works with business teams——from finance, human resources, operations, and sales—to help impact initiatives through buying and managing applications, and integrating and automating workflows throughout them.

The roles in a business technology team are expected to encompass more than 15 million jobs by 2022*, supporting all business verticals. This job market growth is driven by the proliferation of SaaS applications and continual investment in Enterprise Software—the fastest growing spend in IT at a rate of 10.5 percent year over year. It is also driven by the need for organizations to drive transformation and innovation by aligning IT and business goals.

The report, conducted by Atomik Research, an independent market research company, includes responses from two separate surveys; the first of more than 100 full-time Business Technology leaders and the second of more than 300 HR, marketing, sales, finance, and support professionals, manager level and above in the United States. It officially defines the new role, highlights its influence on organizations, and uncovers challenges and barriers this job role faces to help organizations better support an area that is pivotal to their growth. Key findings include:

Business Technology Leaders Drive Productivity and Innovation
With the continued rise of SaaS applications, Business Technology leaders bring a holistic view of the company across individual functional departments.

94 percent of Business Technology respondents agree or strongly agree that Business Technology Teams are key changemakers and drivers of an organization's productivity and innovation.

Existing Tools Are Slowing Down Business Transformation

82 percent of Business Technology Leaders report being backlogged with their projects with Finance being the biggest culprit at 71 percent, followed by Sales and HR.

44 percent indicate that tools at their disposal are slowing them down followed by tactical, day-to-day firefighting at 42 percent.

Job Frustrations, Challenges Evolving with New Role

91 percent of Business Technology respondents are frustrated with their role, citing the speed with which they are able to respond to Lines of Business demands as their number one frustration. 72 percent feel overworked.

Only 18 percent of Business Technology leaders feel "very appreciated" by their Lines Of Business colleagues.

40 percent are frustrated with their current integration/automation tool.

Business Technology and Lines of Business Aren't Fully Aligned

Employee onboarding and offboarding is universally acknowledged as important.

Business Technology respondents cite "hire to retire" procedures for employee on-boarding and off-boarding as the most desired automations (37%).

Lines of Business respondents cite it as the second most desired (26%).

Lines of Business respondents identified Approval Workflows as their most desired automation, Business Technology rated it in the bottom three.

Procure to Pay is among the lowest desired automations for Lines Of Business but in the top 3 for Business Technology.

"The role of application support teams changes considerably when they become responsible for managing SaaS At Scale. Not only are they expected to add customized enhancements to individual applications but they're also responsible for establishing integrations and automating workflows among dozens if not hundreds of SaaS services. This report provides unique insight into how Business Technology teams are stepping up to these new responsibilities," said Mark Settle, 7-time CIO and author.

"There is a foundational shift happening in the role of IT, from providing infrastructure and provisioning hardware to working within business teams to optimize the systems and processes they rely on to help drive business impact," said Vijay Tella, Co-Founder and CEO of Workato. "As a leader in enterprise automation, we are committed to supporting this movement and the Business Technology teams who are guiding their organizations through digital transformation."