Lenovo jointly with AMD have launched a new InfoBrief titled ‘CIO Technology Playbook 2023’, that aims to highlight the opportunities, challenges, and considerations for CIOs in today’s data-driven economy to help them make the right IT investments.
The IDC paper, commissioned by Lenovo and AMD, reveals that with the rapid digital transformation in Asia Pacific, 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 & IT decision-makers in Asia Pacific (AP). The results observed show concerns among CIOs around macroeconomic factors affecting business growth in 2023 and early 2024. Respondents in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) cited ‘high inflation’ (55%) as the topmost concern in 2023, followed by ‘human capital shortage’ (47%) and ‘high energy prices’ (46%) as the other key challenge areas.
“In the current economic climate, ANZ businesses are striving to optimize their resources. CIOs are prioritizing cyber security to combat rising cyber threats. Meanwhile, the focus on digital transformation through AI/ML and edge computing is vital to cut costs and meet the demand for using these technologies in security, fraud/risk management, and IT operations,” said Manu Mehra, Managing Director – Australia and New Zealand, Lenovo ISG. “Lenovo ISG remains dedicated to collaborating with partners and customers to overcome obstacles in the digital transformation journey. With our offerings in edge and cloud computing, analytics, AI, and TruScale Infrastructure-As-a-Service, Lenovo ISG is well equipped to drive increased workforce productivity and collaboration, infrastructure flexibility, sustainability, and industry-specific solutions to tackle common business challenges.”
“It is absolutely essential for business leaders to stay on top of technology trends in order to stay competitive in today’s hypergrowth 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 ‘CIO Technology Playbook 2023’ serves to provide CIOs and other business leaders with key insights into 2023 technology trends that would enable business leaders to implement a future-ready digital infrastructure for sustainable growth,” says Peter Chambers, Managing Director, AMD Asia Pacific & Japan. “With comprehensive data-driven insights on key trends such as Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning, Hybrid/Multi-Cloud and Data Management solutions, our hope is that CIOs will be better equipped to deal with today’s competitive and volatile business climate”.
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 37% of CIOs in ANZ, better data-driven decision making is the top priority, followed by reducing business risk and cyber threats, and cost optimization and savings for 34% and 33% of respondents respectively.
Digital Infrastructure to Significantly Drive Business ROI
Digital infrastructure can help businesses automate tasks, streamline processes, and improve productivity. 87% of ANZ 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 better cyber resiliency (ranked #1 by 62% of ANZ respondents) and modernizing infrastructure for micro-services-oriented architecture (ranked #2 by 44% of ANZ respondents) as the top investment priorities for 2023.
Continued Focus on Hybrid/Multi-Cloud for Cloud/Modernized Mission-Critical Workloads
Over the years, organizations have realized that the public cloud does not always offer the best application experience & performance or reduce the cost burden of ever-increasing cloud workloads. Additionally, security concerns have urged 63% of ANZ organizations to repatriate workloads back from the public cloud to the 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. AP businesses 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 & compliance requirements.
Continued Awareness and Adoption of As-a-Service Flexible Models
Mindshare of As-a-Services-based consumption models has increased tremendously, with ANZ being one of the markets in APAC with the highest awareness, with 81% either having implemented or are planning to implement As-a-Service-based consumption models in the next 12 months.
Keeping up with the highly volatile, ever-changing business and economic environment, organizations in ANZ stated reducing IT operation costs as the key driver of As-a-Service Infrastructure. Consumption-based infrastructure offers flexibility and agility, helping CIOs ease financial burdens and invest more in business innovation.
Unified Data Management Means Improved Innovation
Data locked in cloud silos will impede every organisation’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 AP businesses are using single data management platform, and the research has shown that the figure is significantly lower in ANZ.
Over 78% of AP businesses are currently using multiple data management platforms and systems, and in this stance, more ANZ organizations have adopted this approach.
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 organization’s 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.
AI will become mainstream in 2023: The application of AI to enhance customer experience is gaining more prominence among CIOs in ANZ. 86% of ANZ organizations are either using or are planning to use AI/ML applications in the next 12 months.
Organizations are expected to use AI-powered applications for a broad array of business use cases and functions across vertical industries, and ANZ CIOs are prioritizing its usage in security, fraud/risk management and IT operations.
Edge innovation to gain prominence in the DX journey: There is a strong adoption of edge in ANZ. 91% of organizations are either using or planning to use edge computing in the next 12 months for business operations.
Through edge, businesses can improve the optimal utilization of assets and enhance overall customer experience while ensuring higher uptime or improved reliability. Real-time customer analytics for omni experience; automated quality control and remediation; asset tracking, geo fencing and management were among the top use cases in AP.
The survey was conducted across 12 key markets in Asia – India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Philippines.
You can read the full report here.
