Survey: Software Engineering in Communications, Media and Tech Industries

Survey: Software Engineering in Communications, Media and Tech Industries

Software is the foundation of operational efficiency and innovation across most industries. This is especially true in the communications, media/entertainment and technology (CMT) industries. However, software development efforts don't always match expectations. Read our new global survey, which included more than 1,000 CMT senior executives, to learn more about obstacles and opportunities with software engineering.

Today, it’s accurate to say that software is the business. As a result, the ability to quickly develop and deploy software is now central to commercial success. Companies view software engineering as a means to achieve a range of business goals, including delivering a better customer experience, increasing business agility, accelerating time-to-market, reducing costs and enabling growth.

Yet, many companies struggle to build the software-development capabilities they need to truly operate as software-driven enterprises. The reality is that most companies remain in the planning or pilot-project stages with their software-development improvement initiatives. How can that be? 

To explore this matter further, we conducted a global study, which included more than 1,000 CMT senior executives. The survey took place mid-2019, and when Covid hit, we applied our views of software engineering in a post-Covid world drawn from our Becoming a Software-Centric Business whitepaper from May 2020.

Some of the key findings include:

  • 94% of CMT respondents in our recent global study said they believe that software engineering is critical to their company’s future. 
  • CMT executives most often ranked “improve customer experience, engagement and retention” (42%) as one of the top three expected benefits of software engineering.
  • Only 25% of the CMT executives said that their company has rolled out large-scale implementation of new software-development practices or is in the process of doing so. 
  • 34% of CMT respondents ranked poor perception of the business impact of software engineering as a top obstacle to implementation
  • 80% of the respondents said their efforts are hampered by a lack of budget.


Read the report Software Engineering: Designing a Better Experience for Communications, Media and Technology Customers to get all the survey findings together with advice on how to move forward. The report also includes case studies from Cognizant clients. 

Visit our Communications section of the web and also read the blog post 6 steps to Reimagine Software Engineering

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