MADISON, Wis. – While most technology industry executives hold a dim view of current state economic conditions, 45 percent of those responding to the first WisBusiness.com Tech Leaders Survey said the Wisconsin economy will improve during the next year and nearly three-quarters of the executives rated the overall prospects for their own companies as good or excellent.
The new quarterly survey gauges the perceptions of senior executives in four Wisconsin technology industries: information technology, biotechnology and medical devices, advanced manufacturing, and clean technology and agricultural biotechnology. It measures the executives’ ratings on five key business indicators, including the condition of the state’s economy, their industry, their company, the capital markets and the labor market.
The survey is a project of the Wisconsin Technology Council, in partnership with WisBusiness.com, a Madison-based online business news service, and the Luminis Group, Ltd., a Madison-based corporate and marketing communications firm. The initial survey was conducted from June 23 through July 6, and collected responses from 277 technology company executives from across Wisconsin.
Sixty-six percent of survey respondents rated the current condition of Wisconsin’s economy as fair, while 22.4 percent rated it as poor. Nearly 12 percent (11.6 percent) said the state’s economy is good.
Tech industry executives are more optimistic about the future of Wisconsin’s economy. Almost 45 percent of executives who responded to the survey believe the state’s economy will improve during the next 12 months. Nineteen percent (18.7 percent) said the state’s economy will get worse in the next year, while 36.4 percent believe economic conditions in Wisconsin will stay the same during that period.
Executives who responded to the survey are most optimistic about the prospects for the company they run. Nearly three-quarters of the executives rate the overall prospects for their own companies as good (50.4 percent) or excellent (21.9 percent). Twenty-two percent rate those prospects as only fair and 5 percent rate them as poor. Seventy percent of survey respondents said that things will get better for his or her company during the next 12 months. More than a quarter (27.0 percent) believes things will stay the same for their company in the next year. Only 2.5 percent believe things will get worse.
“While Wisconsin’s tech company executives take a decidedly dim view of the state’s economy in the second-quarter WisBusiness Tech Leaders Survey, those same executives feel good about the state’s economic future and even better about the prospects for their own companies,” said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. “Capital availability remains a challenge for companies in Wisconsin’s tech industry and the results of our second-quarter survey reinforce just how challenging the capital markets are for our tech companies. The Tech Council will continue to work closely with the governor and state Legislature to improve access to the capital that is so critical to the success of companies across the spectrum of Wisconsin’s rapidly-growing tech sector.”
Industry Condition
Executives in Wisconsin’s advanced manufacturing sector who responded to the survey rate the condition of their industry as worse than executives in the other three sectors do. Two-thirds (62.3 percent) of advanced manufacturing executives rated the condition of that industry as only fair. Another 22.6 percent rated the industry’s condition as poor.
Biotechnology and medical device company executives feel better about the condition of their industry than do executives in the other sectors. While 59.3 percent of biotech executives who responded to the survey said the condition of the state’s biotechnology and medical device industry is only fair (55.8 percent) or poor (3.5 percent), nearly 40 percent (38.4 percent) believe the condition of their industry is good.
Executives in the information technology, and clean technology and agricultural biotechnology industries who responded to the survey rated the conditions of their respective sectors nearly the same. Roughly one-third rated the condition of their industry as good; approximately half rated it as only fair and the balance rated it poor.
There was little difference across the four industries in perceptions of whether the condition of each will get better, stay the same or get worse during the next 12 months. Executives in the clean tech and ag-bio industry who responded to the survey, however, expressed more optimism about its future than their colleagues in the other three sectors. Of those clean tech and ag-bio executives who responded to the survey, 100 percent believe their industry will stay the same (51.9 percent) or get better (48.1 percent). While about half of executives in the advanced manufacturing, biotechnology and medical device, and information technology sectors believe the condition of their industries will improve during the next year, roughly 10 percent of those executives believe the condition of his or her industry will get worse in the next 12 months.
Availability of Capital
Almost 80 percent of those tech sector leaders who responded to the survey rate the availability of capital as only fair (34.1 percent) or poor (44.0 percent). Twenty percent rated capital availability as good; 1 percent rated it as excellent. Biotechnology and medical device executives view the capital markets least favorably, as half (50.6 percent) of biotech executives who responded to the survey rated the availability of capital as poor. Information technology executives view capital availability most favorably, with more than a quarter (26.2 percent) of info tech industry respondents rating it as good.
Nearly 60 percent (58.9 percent) of survey respondents believe that the availability of capital will stay the same during the next year. Thirty percent (29.8 percent) believe it will get better and more than 10 percent (11.3 percent) believe it will get worse in the next 12 months. There was little difference between industries in perceptions among survey respondents of whether capital availability will get better or worse in the coming year.
Current Labor Market
Nearly 60 percent (57.9 percent) of technology industry executives who responded to the survey rated as good the ability of the current labor market to meet the personnel needs of their own companies. Almost 20 percent (19.8 percent) said the ability of the current labor market to meet those needs was excellent. Twenty-two percent of survey respondents rated the current labor market as only fair (20.1 percent) or poor (2.2 percent). Biotechnology and medical device executives view the current labor market most favorably, with nearly half (48.2 percent) of biotech executives who responded to the survey rating the ability of the current labor market to fill the personnel needs of their own companies as good. Information technology executives view the current labor market least favorably, as more than 5 percent (5.5 percent) of respondents from that industry rating it as poor.
Seventy-five percent (75.2 percent) of executives who responded to the survey believe the ability of the current labor market to fill their company’s personnel needs will stay the same during the next 12 months. Twenty-one percent (21.2 percent) said it would get better and almost 4 percent (3.6 percent) believe the labor market will get worse in the next year. About three-quarters of those who responded to the survey from each of the four industries believe the ability of the labor market to fill their personnel needs will stay the same during the next 12 months.
About the WisBusiness.com Tech Leaders Survey
The WisBusiness.com Tech Leaders Survey is a quarterly, statewide survey of senior executives in the information technology, biotechnology and medical device, advanced manufacturing, and clean technology and agricultural biotechnology industries. The survey is a project of the Wisconsin Technology Council, WisBusiness.com and the Luminis Group, Ltd. The survey questionnaire is administered by e-mail and Web-based survey technology. This quarter’s survey was fielded from June 23-July 6, 2009 (n=277, 29.5 percent response rate). Respondents represent a geographic, developmental and disciplinary cross-section of the state’s technology industry. The survey is conducted by the Luminis Group, Ltd., Madison, Wis., using generally accepted methodology, including non-biased question wording and order, response category randomization, where appropriate, and uncompensated respondent participation.
Click here to download (PDF) the summary report.
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