Measured by the number of companies in each industry that are using advanced technologies to optimize, manufacturing is the furthest along in this area and the public sector is the least advanced. Most companies fall into the intermediate category, indicating they are actively investing in optimization but are not yet leaders.

Another measure of maturity grades industries by their usage of specific tools to optimize. Ordered this way, financial services comes out on top, with telecom next, then manufacturing and healthcare, followed by the public sector. “​​Financial services is now taking more steps than other industries, even manufacturing, to optimize processes. Mired in coping with the health crisis, healthcare is doing less today, but in 1–2 years it plans to do more than all other industries to optimize processes,” according to the report.

Any way you cut the data, the public sector is the least optimized of the six sectors. Over the next few years, survey respondents from every industry indicated they plan to focus on optimizing their sales, marketing, and human resources departments.