IDC research shows Asia/Pacific disruption intensifying, but organizations lagging behind in digital transformation maturity

03 Jul 2016

SINGAPORE, July 4^th, 2016 – IDC Asia/Pacific IDC Asia/Pacific announced today the release of a new report assessing Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) organizations’ maturity and progress in their Digital Transformation (DX) initiatives. The report highlights that Asia/Pacific organizations are still at a nascent stage of digital transformation, with the vast majority (45.4%) of enterprises surveyed operating at the basic ad hoc level (i.e. digital resisters) and yet to establish basic DX capabilities and adopt digital solutions systematically.

"The pace of DX is accelerating in Asia/Pacific, but 45% of organizations are still in the first stage of DX maturity (out of 5 stages), compared with 14% in the United States. Organizations in Asia/Pacific need to focus on accelerating their digital capabilities, otherwise they will face irrelevance. If successfully done, this will help drive competitive advantage, grow revenue, and ultimately increase market share,” says Daniel-Zoe Jimenez, Associate Director and lead of IDC's Asia/Pacific Digital Transformation research practice.

Thirty three percent (33%) of organizations (the second largest group) fall within the opportunistic stage of Digital Transformation (DX) maturity. These organizations have already established basic digital capabilities, but to progress to the next stage of maturity (repeatable) they need to focus on increasing the integration and consistency of its digital initiatives.

The IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Digital Transformation in Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) provides objective data to help organizations uncover gaps between their own and their competitors' DX maturity. It consists of five stages: ad hoc, opportunistic, repeatable, managed and optimized.

To view the opportunities and challenges more clearly as IT moves through the various stages of DX maturity, IDC also measured maturity across the five key dimensions of the IDC MaturityScape framework. The five critical dimensions which organizations need to understand are the following: leadership, omni-experience, worksource, operating model, and information.

The IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Digital Transformation in Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) provides sub-regional insights based on the analysis of 13 countries across the Asia/Pacific region (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam), and Industry insights; as well as discusses key examples of Asia/Pacific innovation. Key findings from the research include:

• The overall trend of the maturity stages across all the dimensions is quite consistent, although there are some notable points, including that Leadership DX, Omni-Experience DX, and Information DX are the dimensions most difficult to reach the managed or optimized stage for organizations in Asia/Pacific.

• The ANZ sub-region is the most mature of Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) and its results are more similar to respondents in the United States than the total results at the APEJ level.

• Financial services, communications and healthcare show the most relative maturity at the overall DX level in Asia/Pacific excluding Japan.

"DX is not just another technology trend, but a critical business priority for many CEOs and their leadership teams across Asia/Pacific. Processes and business models that were optimal a few years ago are now outdated — or simply don't provide the speed and agility required to compete,” says Jimenez.

“The fact that the majority of Asia/Pacific organizations are in the first 2 stages of maturity shows that digital transformation is not as simple as buying a technology solution. DX involves a radical rethink of how to do business. To be successful, organizations need to focus on developing the vision and strategy for digital transformation of products, services, and experiences to deliver value to partners, customers, and employees,” adds Jimenez.

The IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Digital Transformation in Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) is a supplement of the report, "IDC MaturityScape : Digital Transformation ".

About IDC MaturityScape Benchmark

IDC MaturityScape Benchmark reports aid in the discussion of IT strategy and technology investments by helping IT executives and their enterprise partners gauge where their enterprise is in relation to that of their peers and competitors, best achievers, and the least invested. By utilizing IDC benchmark data, IDC MaturityScape Benchmarks enable organizations to compare maturity against peers, pinpoint which dimensions of an initiative peer organizations are more mature in, and identify the benefits organizations achieve as they move to more mature stages. This benchmark study focused on organizations with 500 or more employees in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan).