Either explicitly or implicitly, every company is continually seeking gains in productivity. It is the lifeblood of business, and what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. In today's age, the primary enabler of more productivity is invariably better software. As a result, many of the most valuable companies in the world are ones that provide software that empowers others to increase their output.

We've structured a lot of our research around productivity, picking three areas that give enterprises many pain points:

• Work coordination
• IT administration
• DevOps  

For enterprises, each of these areas are producing increasing levels of inefficiency, commensurate with increasing levels of digitalisation. For instance, teams are trying to coordinate work in an accelerating digital environment with dated legacy systems. IT admins manage fleets of devices that have rapidly increased in number and type, with manual and error-prone processes. DevOps teams are pressured to sustain high-velocity software releases, while maintaining high quality and safety.

Digitalisation has surged complexity, overburdening people on the ground. Therefore, we like finding software vendors that can make a big difference. Those type of vendors that can eradicate the pain points and allow employees to focus on the more value-generating activities for their companies. As businesses experience the inevitable rise in complexity, it is these vendors that will rise in value.