Tech Pros Losing Faith in America as a Global IT Innovation Leader

Most business technology professionals believe the United States has lost its position as a global IT innovation leader, citing offshore job movement, failure in education, and national policy making as top three reasons, according to a new report.

The “Research: Innovation Mandate” report surveyed nearly 625 business technology professionals on whether the nation is losing its edge in tech competitiveness.

The findings reveal that one key concern is the offshoring of technology jobs to India and other countries. Among the 427 survey respondents who think the nation is losing or has lost its technology-leadership position, 66 percent cited offshore job movement as one of the top three reasons.

More than half of respondents who think the United States is losing or has lost its technology-leadership position cited a failure in education as another main reason. The report noted the U.S. education system has failed to prepare young students in  STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering and math—and U.S. companies are not providing their employees with adequate technical training.

Nearly one-third of respondents said they worry about a lack of technology leadership at the U.S. national policy-making level. The report noted how the United States, unlike Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, Finland and several other countries, has not had a cohesive national policy in technology areas such as mobile payments, intelligent electricity grids and transportation systems, green computing, and (until recently) broadband and electronic health records.

One-fourth of respondents think lack of leadership at the tech CEO level is a main reason for disintegrating U.S. tech competitiveness. The report noted how the U.S. government and U.S.-based companies do not spend enough on tech-based R&D and long-term innovation.