An IDC paper, commissioned by Lenovo and AMD, shows that with the rapid Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific (AP), organizations are expected to generate as much as 43% of the revenue from digitally connected products, services and customer experiences by 2027.
The CIO Technology playbook is a study of over 900 CIOs and IT decision-makers in AP. The results reveal concerns among CIOs around macroeconomic factors affecting business growth in 2023 and early 2024.
For 53% of respondents ‘high inflation’ is the topmost concern in 2023; half (50%) of the CIOs ranked ‘high energy prices’ and ‘escalating raw material prices’ as the other key challenge areas.
“The upcoming year is predicted to be a challenging one with economic fluctuations and the acceleration of Digital Transformation. IT leaders in Asia Pacific are consequently putting more of an emphasis on streamlining processes and utilizing technology to optimize resources and increase business agility, so they can react quicker to the changing needs of the industry,” said Sumir Bhatia, President – Asia Pacific, Lenovo ISG. “In response to the evolving market, businesses in the region are prioritizing Digital Transformation and modernizing legacy IT infrastructure,” he said.
Peter Chambers, Managing Director, AMD Asia Pacific and Japan, said: “It is absolutely essential for business leaders to stay on top of technology trends in order to stay competitive in today’s hyper growth environment. AMD has played a critical role in the transformation process of multiple organizations over the years and we are thrilled to be a part of this joint initiative with Lenovo.”
The study further highlights that IT decision-makers are actively looking to leverage technology to optimize their supply chains and improve asset utilization, agility and resilience, enabling them to respond faster to the changing needs of the business.
When it comes to business priorities, for 36% of CIOs in Asia driving revenue and profit growth is the top priority, followed by driving higher customer experience and satisfaction, and cost optimization and savings for 32% of respondents respectively.
Digital Infrastructure to significantly drive business ROI
Digital infrastructure can help businesses automate tasks, streamline processes and improve productivity. Eighty-five per cent of Asia Pacific organizations agree that digital infrastructure is essential to achieve business goals. With the advent of multi-clouds and rapidly expanding edge infrastructure, CIOs are highly concerned about the growing IT operational complexity and increasing demand for faster response to their ever-changing and evolving business requirements. To accelerate their Digital Transformation (DX) and modernize legacy IT infrastructure, CIOs called out improving cyber resiliency (ranked #1 by 49% of respondents in Asia) and automating digital infrastructure management (ranked #2 by 47% of respondents in Asia) as the top investment priorities for 2023.
Increased focus on hybrid/multi-cloud for cloud/modernized mission-critical workloads
Over the years, organizations have realized that public cloud does not always offer the best application experience and performance or reduce cost burden from ever-increasing cloud workloads. Additionally, security concerns have urged 68% of organizations in the ASEAN+ region to repatriate workloads back from public cloud to private cloud and/or traditional data centers in the last 12 months.
Hybrid or multi-cloud is poised to gain prominence in Asia over the next 2 to 3 years, as businesses in Asia Pacific will continue to run more than 50% of mission-critical workloads on traditional data center infrastructure, systems and platforms and private cloud infrastructure. Hybrid or multi-cloud offers the highest levels of performance and meets data security and compliance requirements.
Growing awareness and adoption of As-a-Service flexible models
Mindshare of As-a-Service based consumption models has increased tremendously in AP.
Keeping up with the highly volatile, ever-changing business and economic environment, organizations in AP stated cost rationalization and optimization as the key drivers of As-a-Service infrastructure. Consumption-based infrastructure offers flexibility and agility, helping CIOs ease financial burdens and invest more in business innovation. Eighty-five per cent of organizations in ASEAN+ are either already leveraging As-a-Service flexible IT infrastructure or are planning to adopt it in the next 12 months.
Unified data management means improved innovation
Data locked in cloud silos will impede every organization’s ability to successfully digitally transform and thereby meet digital business goals. Efficient data management requires seamless mobility of data in a highly secure manner across the different deployment locations. While there are growing application interdependencies, only 8% of businesses in Asia Pacific are using single data management platforms and another 78% of businesses are currently using multiple data management platforms and systems.
Single unified data management platforms offer seamless data mobility across multiple clouds and integrate data across containers and at the Edge. Modern single unified data management platforms for myriad data types will be the cornerstone of digitally transforming organizations’ data-innovation journey. CIOs investing in the right platforms and technologies to manage the data explosion at the Edge will be in strong stead to build market leadership.
Enhancing customer experience is a priority for CIOs
Businesses across verticals such as manufacturing, retail, logistics, transportation and energy are increasingly focused on delivering a superior customer experience to drive success in the digital economy.
