Audience with Zurich: Techmedia sector in the spotlight

The findings also reveal that these firms believe attracting staff with the right skills is a key concern, with them ranking this as their greatest area of risk.

The new Zurich Hazard Warning Report is an in depth study of owner-managers within the mid-market sector - those companies with a £5m-300m turnover - combined with qualitative analysis that highlights the key concerns for UK technology companies. As well as the opportunities and challenges they face in the future.

Despite the vast majority (77%) of companies saying that, compared to last year, they feel optimistic about the future, they also have a number of underlying challenges.

When questioned about growth strategy - against a backdrop of rapidly increasing IT salaries - competition for skilled employees is again shown to be a concern with nearly half (41%) saying that retention is their top priority. For smaller companies, the biggest issue for growth strategy is the need to keep up with technological evolution. 49% listed this as their top growth priority.

Technology evolution risk [the challenge for companies to keep up-to-date on technological advances] is also shown to be a concern with 39% of companies saying they feel highly exposed; of the smaller companies, almost half (46%) say that technology evolution is a real threat to their business.

The need to do business in emerging markets such as China and India is seen by 21% of technology companies as one of their biggest opportunities over the next year, second only to innovation of their products or services.

However, 44% of larger companies also feel highly exposed to the risks associated with this, specifically the impact that varying regulatory and operational requirements can have on the success of a business's entry into a foreign marketplace.

To mark the launch of the report, Geoff White, senior market underwriter Techmedia, Zurich Insurance speaks to Post and Insurance Age editor-in-chief Jonathan Swift about these findings and more.