FREMONT, CA:Nearly one third of US organizations believe that the failure to innovate and keep up with evolving customer needs will have the biggest negative impact on their company in the next five years, according to a new global study, “Innovate or Perish”, sponsored by Automic Software and conducted by Vanson Bourne. 400 Business Decision Makers (BDMs) and 4,000 consumers in the U.S, France, the U.K. and Germany (100 BDMs and 1,000 consumers in the U.S) participated in the survey, voicing their opinions on the current scenario. It spanned four important verticals: energy and utilities, financial services, retail, and telecommunications. The research indicates that 77percent of companies anticipate a decline in the number of customers if they fail to evolve, while 70percent forecast a reduction in revenue and 68percent expect international operations to decline. However, U.S. BDMs are more confident about the innovative nature of their organizations as compared to their European counterparts: specifically, 21percent feel their organization is on the cutting edge of technology and has kept up completely with changing customer demands, compared with just 8percent in the U.K. and 14percent in Germany. Key findings of the study shows that U.S. innovation priorities are different from Europe. Nearly 100percent of the organizations in the U.S. are planning to innovate over the coming years. Their priority focus is different to Europe though: in the U.S., the main areas they want to innovate in are products and services (59percent), IT and technology systems (49percent) and customer service (41percent). European priorities are: IT and technology systems (61percent average across U.K., France and Germany), products and services (41percent) and customer service (31percent). 53percent of BDMs believe that speed of an online product/service holds greater importance over personalization. 78percent respondents believe that their organization is willing to sacrifice the personalization of an online product in favor of the speed of that service. According to the survey, 22percent of BDMs in the U.S. claim that their customer experience is second to none compared with 18percent in France, 16percent in Germany and 9percent in the U.K. Moreover, just 2percent of BDMs in the U.S. say their organization has not kept up well with customer needs, compared with 14percent in the U.K., 3percent in France and 4percent in Germany. “This survey highlights the importance the US places on utilizing technology for customer satisfaction and how well US businesses are doing when it comes to embracing cloud, big data and business automation as a key instrument in delivering enterprise innovation and change,” says Chris Boorman, CMO Automic.