To stay ahead of the competition in a global marketplace, firms are increasingly speeding up operations, in many cases adopting real-time systems and tools to allow for instant decision-making and faster business cycles.

According to a new report from Oxford Economics and SAP, Real-time business: Changing the game in the new global marketplace, which included a survey of 525 business executives worldwide, 30% of companies have already adopted  real-time business applications in some way—and 65% that have not yet implemented real-time systems plan to do so in the near future. Oil and gas firms lead in adoption of such systems; 54% of respondents in that industry say their firms have adopted real-time operations.