Japan stood out: 81% of IT executives said their companies have a digital transformation strategy, but 59% don’t feel confident about it. Developing markets, such as in ASEAN, also indicate some worry about which technologies to adopt, but some are recognizing the importance of key ones and planning for a mobile future. For now, however, the common ground is in those technologies where the downsides of neglect are clear: Most IT managers in private and public sectors there, for example, said they took cybersecurity seriously, and were well down the road to adoption.
The Cisco survey (see Figure 1) – conducted by an independent third party research firm - interviewed more than 1,300 key executives in IT, including Chief Information Security Officers, Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers, as well as vice presidents and directors of IT, heads of IT and heads of IT infrastructure from education, financial services, the public sector, healthcare, manufacturing and retail about their attitudes and plans surrounding key technologies. Those included cloud, cybersecurity, internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, automation, big data and analytics, and 5G.
Figure 1
The objective of the survey was to assess companies’ preparedness for digital transformation and, specifically, identify gaps, or harmony, between IT investments in key technologies and infrastructure and their Digital Transformation strategies. In the survey, IT infrastructure was defined as comprising networks, data centers and security.
Confidence in digital preparedness is high, except in Japan and larger organizations The Cisco study reveals companies in Asia-Pacific are highly confident about their digital future: 92% said they had a digital transformation strategy, and 88% feel that strategy is right to succeed. Another 88% of IT leaders also think they are adequately prepared to adopt the relevant technologies for the future. Japan is the exception, where 59% of IT leaders said their digital strategies are falling short. Larger organizations, too, seem to be more challenged: 19% of IT leaders in larger organizations don’t think they are adequately prepared to adopt the relevant technologies for Digital Transformation vs 7% in smaller companies.
IT leaders are prioritizing price over assurance Budget is the number one reason why IT executives in large and small organizations are not investing in the technologies considered relevant for digital transformation (42%). In fact, they admit they have made compromises to bring down the cost of their IT purchases. However, 37% of IT leaders regret the decision because the solution was unreliable (48%) and didn’t meet the expectations (45%), forcing 49% of the companies to top up the initial investment.
Aging infrastructure is a roadblock, particularly for larger organizations When asked about why they are not able to adopt the relevant technologies for the future, 38% of IT leaders across all markets in Asia-Pacific indicated aging infrastructure is a barrier. And while 90% of companies said they have made upgrades to their IT infrastructure in the last three years, not all parts are getting covered: 30% said they had not upgraded their networking, data center or security, the three infrastructure components surveyed for this report. Here, too, the divide between larger and smaller organizations is clear: 42% of larger organizations are less likely to modernize their IT infrastructure compared with 29% of mid-sized organizations and 25% of smaller ones.
Cybersecurity and cloud are a top of mind Sixty-five percent of IT leaders in Asia-Pacific consider cybersecurity paramount to succeed in digital transformation, particularly in financial services (80%). Eighty-five percent of companies regionally have adopted it and 42% indicated they had made security upgrades due to a breach. Cloud is equally relevant: 70% of IT leaders consider cloud a priority and 80% have adopted it. The study also reveals 63% of companies are adopting SD-WAN, suggesting they may be optimizing their networks for cloud.
Expect a big push in automation! While automation didn’t stand out as a technology shaping companies’ digital future, 83% of them plan on rolling it out in the next 6 months to a year. The push seems to be coming from developing countries, such as Vietnam, rather than from developed countries, such as Japan.
