Data Readiness Index shows organizations in Singapore and Australia lead the pack with the highest scores; findings reveal people at the heart of data readiness.
Tableau Software’s Asia Pacific Data Readiness Index (DRI), developed together with IDC, revealed that leading data-ready organizations produced an average of 90% better business outcomes than laggards.
Despite this, only 20% of businesses are in the leading band with a majority in the developing (66%) and lagging (14%) bands. The survey highlights that people-related traits like employee data skills and organization-wide collaboration are seen as key performance drivers.
More than 700 organizations in APAC were surveyed across five dimensions to determine their state of data readiness and indexed into three bands, leading, developing, and lagging. Data readiness refers to an organization’s capability to make data central to their business through widespread adoption of analytics. Results are published in IDC’s Executive Insights report, Data Readiness: Business Impact for the Digital Era.
“Organizations in APAC are at an inflection point of their digital transformation. While many recognize the critical role data plays in this strategy, they are struggling to become truly data-driven,” said JY Pook, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific, Tableau. “In order to remain competitive and realize the business benefits, organizations need to adopt a holistic and tailored approach to drive data readiness in their organization.”
“The DRI captures an organization’s ability to harness its data to secure enterprise KPIs. We see big differences in DRI across functions and industries throughout Asia. The factors that drive DRI like skills, leadership, technology, governance, and process also vary widely. These reveal some valuable lessons for business leaders about the initiatives to prioritize in particular circumstances,” said Dr Chris Marshall, Associate Vice President – Analytics, Big Data and Artificial Intelligence in IDC Asia Pacific.
Singapore, Australia lead the way
Singapore is one of the most data-ready markets in the region with the highest number of organizations in the leading band (52%). Organizations in Singapore also come up as leaders on the dimensions of people skills and governance. The findings suggest that businesses in Singapore should leverage technology and adopt an integrated model for data governance to take their data-readiness to the next level.
“These results confirm that our holistic strategy of empowering our people with the right tools, including quality data and robust analytics training, enables AIA Singapore to be even more customer-centric. As a data-driven organization, we make our decisions based on deep customer insights into what they really want and need,” said Dion Thorpe, Senior Manager, Enterprise Data, Strategy and Transformation, AIA Singapore.
Overall, Singapore (52%) and Australia (49.5%) have the largest number of organizations leading the way. India has the most organizations that are lagging behind (30%). APAC markets rank as follows on the index:
| Markets | Average DRI score | |
| 1 | Australia | 3.54 |
| 2 | Singapore | 3.52 |
| 3 | Japan | 2.74 |
| 4 | South Korea | 2.69 |
| 5 | Hong Kong | 2.67 |
| 6 | China | 2.64 |
| 7 | India | 2.51 |
The survey also revealed varying levels of data readiness in APAC across industries, organization size and departments. These findings include:
- Larger organizations typically have higher DRI scores, driven primarily by people skills and processes showcasing their consistency in setting up processes and hiring talent with the necessary data skills as compared to smaller/privately-held organizations.
- Functionally, sales and operation are the most advanced in using data to guide and support their work. On the other hand, finance, marketing and human resources show room for improvement across the various dimensions.
- Financial services and insurance, as well as professional services industries are the most data ready.
- Industries that need to catch up with low overall DRI scores and in the individual dimensions are communications, media and telecommunications (CMT)and utilities. The utilities sector is not yet conducive for data-led innovation, while CMT have most executives making decisions based on personal intuition (35%).
To access the full report, visit https://www.tableau.com/learn/whitepapers/apac-data-readiness.
To help organizations navigate the challenges of becoming data ready, Tableau launched its Tableau Blueprint, a strategic framework with concrete plans, recommendations and guidelines.
