Automating digital infrastructure management came in at second place, reflecting growing operation complexity in IT and information management
In a survey of around 900 and IT decision-makers in Australia, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand to highlight the opportunities, challenges, and considerations for CIOs, the conclusion was that, with rapid digital transformation in the region, organizations are expected to generate as much as 43% of the revenue from digitally connected products, services, and customer experiences by 2027.
For 53% of respondents, high inflation was the topmost concern in 2023; 50% of the CIOs surveyed ranked high energy prices and escalating raw material prices as the other key challenge areas.
Other findings include:
- 36% of CIOs polled, top business priorities included driving revenue and profit growth, and driving higher customer experience and satisfaction. For 32% of other respondents, the priorities were cost optimization and savings.
- 85% of Asia Pacific organizations polled indicated that digital infrastructure is essential for achieving their business goals.
- 49% of CIO respondents in Asia ranked improving cyber resilience as their top investment priority for the year, followed by automating digital infrastructure management (ranked #2 by 47% of respondents in Asia).
- 68% of respondents in the ASEAN+ region (Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan) had repatriated workloads from public cloud to private cloud and/or traditional data centers in the last 12 months. Also, 85% of respondents in this group of countries were either already leveraging As-a-Service flexible IT infrastructure, or were planning to adopt it in the next 12 months.
- 8% of respondents in the Asia Pacific were using a single data management platform, and 78% of businesses were currently using multiple data management platforms and systems.
- 88% or more of the respondents in the Asia Pacific region were either using or were planning to use AI/ML applications in the next 12 months. In the ASEAN+ bloc, 91% of respondents were using or planning to use AI applications in the year ahead, with some of the top business processes with AI and ML incorporated being IT operations, sales and distribution, and finance and accounting.
Said Sumir Bhatia, President (Asia Pacific), Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group, which commissioned the survey: “The upcoming year is predicted to be a challenging one with economic fluctuations and the acceleration of digital transformation. IT leaders in APAC are consequently putting more of an emphasis on streamlining processes and utilizing technology to optimize resources and increase business agility, so they can react quicker to the changing needs of the industry.
According to Peter Chambers, Managing Director, AMD (Asia Pacific and Japan), a co-sponsor of the survey: “It is absolutely essential for business leaders to stay on top of technology trends in order to stay competitive in today’s hyper growth environment. With comprehensive data-driven insights on key trends such as AI/ML, 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.”
| Rate of organizations using/planning to use technologies key regions in APAC | ASEAN+ | INDIA | ANZ | JAPAN | KOREA |
| AI | 91% | 97% | 86% | 74% | 84% |
| Edge Computing | 92% | 97% | 91% | 67% | 87% |
