Survey shows IT hiring expected to rise in 2012

MENLO PARK, Calif. – Technology executives expect information technology (IT) hiring to continue in the first quarter of 2012, according to the just-released Robert Half Technology IT Hiring Index and Skills Report (http://rht.mediaroom.com/ITHiringIndex). In the latest quarterly survey, 20 percent of chief information officers (CIOs) said they plan to expand their IT departments, and 10 percent expect cutbacks, for a net 10 percent projected increase in hiring activity. This is up four points from the previous quarter’s projections.

The IT Hiring Index and Skills Report is based on telephone interviews with more than 1,400 CIOs from companies across the United States with 100 or more employees. Executives are asked whether their companies plan to increase or decrease the number of full-time IT personnel on their staff during the coming quarter. The survey is conducted by an independent research firm and developed by Robert Half Technology, a leading provider of IT professionals on a project and full-time basis. Robert Half has been tracking IT hiring activity in the United States since 1995.

Survey Shows Retailers Need to Meet Demand for Online Shopping Experience, or Risk Losing Revenue

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates – New research from Brocade across Europe and Middle East shows that just over 86 percent of consumers use their mobile device including smartphones or tablets to do their holiday shopping and nearly 70 percent of these respondents are only prepared to wait a maximum of 20 seconds for a web page to load before going to another retailer.

This suggests a strong shift in consumer expectations regarding service quality and changing habits in online shopping – making way for a mobile commerce boom and the need for service providers to step up to the plate and offer services to match, while coping with fluctuating seasonal demands.

Small Business Owners put business before health

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Despite a year filled with economic instability, a majority of small business owners (72 percent) say 2011 was a successful year for their company– and new data shows new business activity saw a boost, too. According to the latest Manta SMB Wellness Index, new business activity was up more than 12 percent in the third quarter of 2011, compared to the same time last year.

The Manta SMB Wellness Index is a quarterly index on the state of small business released by Manta, the largest online community dedicated entirely to small business. The index examines nationwide data collected from multiple business resources and takes a “pulse” of small business owners on hot topics. Manta’s latest survey polled more than 1,000 small business owners about their feelings on the 2011 small business landscape, predictions for 2012 and how their business is impacting their personal well being.

Good Customer Service is Key to Capturing Holiday Shoppers

SAN FRANCISCO, – A new study released today by MarketTools, Inc., the leader in software and services for enterprise feedback management (EFM) and market research, revealed that providing a good customer experience, bolstered by good customer service, is do-or-die for retailers this holiday shopping season. According to the study, 60 percent of consumers said they shop more often at certain online sites because of a good shopping experience marked by good customer service, and 50 percent of shoppers said they shop more often at specific retail stores because of the good customer experience they offer.

Possibly more telling, 29 percent said they have stopped shopping at a specific retail store because of a bad shopping experience, and nearly a quarter have done the same with online retail sites. The primary factor for avoiding certain brick-and-mortar retail stores is unhelpful/unfriendly sales personnel (71 percent), followed by long lines or long wait time (41 percent), and quality issues with merchandise (39 percent). The main reasons shoppers cited for no longer returning to a shopping website were quality issues with the merchandise or damaged merchandise (46 percent), high shipping costs (43 percent) and shipping problems (37 percent).

Email Still Essential To Business Owners: Survey Says

GFI Software released research showing that U.S. businesses are failing to maximize the efficiency with which they extract useful business intelligence from archived email. While a majority of businesses value this information — including for analysis of communication trends and response times to customer queries, storage capacity monitoring and data leakage protection—many are using only the most basic tools to archive their email.

The independent blind survey of 200 IT decision makers in U.S. organizations was conducted by Opinion Matters on behalf of GFI Software. It reveals how organizations retain and reuse email data, what solutions they have in place for doing this, what value they place on email data and how frequently the IT department is called upon to assist in the recovery of email from archives to support employees.