We’ve just released our latest forecast for end-user spending on social and collaboration software. We forecast that End-user spending on social and collaboration software in 2023 will be $14.5 billion, growing to $24.7 billion by 2027.
For this iteration, we combined Workstream collaboration with collaborative work management, employee communication applications, and general social/intranet products. These products share similar buyers and dynamics, making it logical to present them together. However, we do showcase separate growth rates for each sub-market and their trends.
The forecast is interesting this year in light of the COVID-19 pandemic’s upheavals, which accelerated remote collaboration in many ways. While some of the sub-markets reverted to their prior trajectory, collaborative work management is best positioned to sustain its new path.
Collaborative work management and employee communication tools are currently dynamic markets without a clear leader, and vendors continue to innovate based on evolving customer needs. Workstream collaboration, on the other hand, has numerous vendors, but Microsoft and Slack dominate the market. Still, workstream collaboration is the largest portion of the forecasted spending.
These sub-markets represent the second tier of products that customers discover in the productivity suite, following email and authoring (which have a separate forecast). In our 2021 tech user behavior survey, we found that 27% of workers who use technology don’t use productivity tools daily (most use them weekly or monthly). Social and collaboration tools can provide an end run around email, so we think their increased usage will reduce that number. By 2027, we predict that half of the technology users who aren’t currently using productivity tools daily will start doing so.
Here is a link to the forecast (clients only) where you can see the details and analysis for each sub-market:
Forecast Analysis: Social and Collaboration Software in the Workplace, Worldwide
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