Asian firms have latched on to digital transformation as a strategy, not just for growth but also for survival as digital transformation gains high prominence across the business agenda of 95% of Asia-Pacific firms, according to Red Hat.
This was revealed in a study conducted by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services on behalf of Red Hat, surveying 143 business executives from APAC from various industries including financial services, IT and manufacturing sectors.
The APAC difference in transformation effectiveness translates into important business benefits for the region’s firms, including helping them bring new products and services to market faster than their global counterparts.
Findings show that 80% of respondents ranked cultural change and technology modernisation of equal importance for digital transformation.
Also, 40% of APAC executives are quickly developing and delivering new applications to market, compared to only 23% of executives in the rest of the world.
According to APAC executives, cultural change stood out as one of the three building blocks of modernisation, along with technology and business processes thus creating significant impediments to transformation success.
The survey respondents cited that company culture now includes factors such as collaboration (44%), inclusivity (42%), adaptability (41%), and transparency (40%).
Also, the study revealed that companies looking to digitally transform successfully will need to support their cultural change initiatives with efforts to modernise their infrastructure and application architecture.
By combining the two initiatives, companies in APAC can adopt continuous integration/continuous delivery methods which are deemed vital by 75% of the respondents; quickly develop and deliver new applications (40%); respond rapidly to customer demands (39%); update systems efficiently (39%); and control maintenance costs (39%).
APAC executives have clear ideas about where to invest over the next 12-18 months to maintain their digital transformation momentum.
They plan to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (40%), as well as increase their spending on cloud-based business applications by 8% and business process automation tools by 6%.
