The pandemic has either accelerated or highlighted the need for digital-first strategies, with 72% of Asia-Pacific organisations realising the need for digital-first strategies, and another 21% having already anticipated the need for such strategies prior to the pandemic, according to Okta.
This awareness has led to widespread adoption of customer identity amd access management (CIAM) solutions, with 56% of digital-first leaders having already deployed CIAM, and another 32% planning deployment in the next 12 to 24 months.
Commissioned by Okta, IDC surveyed senior and mid-level management personnel in IT and lines of business across 750 organisations in APAC in April 2022.
The study also revealed a low level of CIAM maturity among organisations, where only 34% of digital-first leaders and 14% of digital-first followers have adopted an advanced approach towards CIAM.
An advanced CIAM approach is defined in the study as an approach where customer identities are managed via a CIAM platform with full integration to enable 360-degree customer overviews in order to deliver a highly personalised experience.
Digital-first leaders with a high level of CIAM maturity show better business outcomes such as customer acquisition, customer loyalty, digital talent attraction and retention, and time to market for new products and services.
“One of the most important strategies that CEOs in this region have identified is to leverage pent up demand from customers and consumers by improving on digital product and services experiences,” said Linus Lai, IDC’s VP of software and services in APAC excluding Japan.
“CIAM is fundamental to delivering a seamless experience whilst keeping customers’ service experiences around assurance intact,” said Lai.
Ben Goodman, SVP and general manager of APAC including Japan at Okta, said organisations need to level up their CIAM deployments in order to reap the full benefits that it brings, such as better customer satisfaction, business agility and resilience against an ever-evolving cyber threat landscape.
The top three challenges highlighted in the study include difficulty defending against malicious attacks (9%), combining customer access through multiple channels (9%), and managing customer privacy content (9%).
Countries across APAC fare differently in terms of digital maturity. Australia (67%), Singapore (66%) and New Zealand (60%) were the top three markets with a strong digital-first strategy in place.
In addition, markets with higher percentages of digital-first organisations are also more likely to consider CIAM as a top priority investment for their organisation. New Zealand (90%), Australia (87%) and Singapore (72%) were among the top markets that considered CIAM as a top priority.
CIAM solutions often result in a range of tangible benefits for organisations that choose to invest in them. According to the survey, the top three business benefits that these organisations have achieved by investing in CIAM solutions are operational efficiency (22%), improved security posture (19%), and enhanced customer experience (17%).
