More than 75% of organisations in the Asia-Pacific region including Japan (APJ) have already embarked on their digital transformation (DX) journeys, and 70% regularly use multiple clouds, putting the region at the forefront of the world, according to Informatica.
Commissioned by Informatica, IDC surveyed 899 members of the office of the chief data officer (CDO), across 10 countries including Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Japan.
Findings show that despite greater data leadership, almost 60% of APJ organizations felt unprepared to combat the rapid changes during COVID-19.
“The survey shows organisations with higher data maturity are better at using cloud and AI to address the primary challenge of fragmentation and complexity and generate higher levels of business value with their data,” said Stewart Bond, IDC research director. “Organisations seeking to become digital leaders should place a strong focus on data leadership.”
The study identified three key themes in APAC. First is that the region’s greatest challenge is data fragmentation whih, coupled with complexity, distracts from innovation.
Among Asian organisations, 82% are managing over 100 data sources, and 32% are managing more than 1,000 sources.
This fragmentation, with data spread across multiple sources and many clouds, makes it much more difficult to discover, manage and derive intelligence from their data.
The study found that enterprises with a high level of data maturity generate 250% more business value than those only beginning their data-led transformations, where most of the time in data management is spent keeping the lights on.
A second theme in APJ is that operationalising artificial intelligence to automate data management is critical to success. Only AI can deliver the speed and scalability demanded by modern enterprises and the study found that data-mature organisations were three times better at operationalising AI to automate data management activities than their less mature peers.
Only 37% of organisations in APJ have automated data management across the business, and only 35% of APJ organisations have operationalised AI for process optimisation and automation.
And third, the study highlighted how critical data management is to digital transformation, noting that organisations with strong data leadership are three times more likely to be well underway with digital transformation.
Fragmentation and complexity in APJ extend even into executive’s data roles, as 33% of organisations have enterprise data executives and leaders, while the other 67% distribute responsibility across other C-level positions.
There are no clear reporting lines for data leaders in the region, with a good mix of data leaders reporting to CEOs, CIOs, COOs and CTOs.
