Business Leaders in Asia Believe that a New Data Culture is Needed for Successful Digital Transformation

Business Leaders in
Asia Believe that a New Data Culture is Needed for Successful Digital
Transformation

Based on Microsoft’s
Asia Data Culture Study 2016, less than half of business leaders believe they
have a full digital strategy in place today and even more needs to be done to
develop a data culture

Asia
Pacific, 10 May 2016 – Microsoft Asia today unveiled
findings from its first ever Asia Data Culture Study 2016, which showed that
while 88% of business leaders polled in Asia agreed that it is important for
their organisations to have an agile business that is data-driven, less than
half of them (43%) believe they have a full digital strategy in place. Business
leaders also identified gaps in their organisations’ ability to drive data
driven decision making.

The
Study[1] polled 940
business leaders from medium to large companies in 13 markets in Asia.
Respondents were surveyed on their organizations’ digital and data strategy,
and readiness for the digital economy.

Andreas
Hartl, General Manager, Cloud and Enterprise Division, Microsoft Asia Pacific
said, “The confluence of cloud, mobility and data is changing the way companies
do business with their customers. This is resulting in new demands that make it
necessary for every business to transform to a digital and data-driven
business.”

“In
today’s mobile-first, cloud-first world, technology is interwoven into every
aspect of our personal lives, forcing all businesses to be a digital business.
As data is the electricity of the new economy, businesses need to turn data
into actionable insights and predict the future as a way to get ahead of the
trends and develop new revenue streams. Faced with economic uncertainties and
disruptive competitors, analytics and predictive data is what organisations
need to survive. With the right tools, insights can come from anyone, anywhere,
at any time. When that happens, organizations develop what we describe as a
‘data culture’,” added Hartl.

The New Data Culture in Asia’s Organizations

The New
Data Culture involves three organisational traits:

1.    
Infrastructure for Data Agility:
Data platforms need to be interoperable with multiple data sources to collect
information from any device, share it and present it in a meaningful way. There
is a left to right view of the business enabling better decision making real
time. Intelligence is built in to develop predictions from data.

2.    
Data Governance for Collaboration: There
is C-Level ownership of the data strategy where access to data is
democratized and governed by policies to protect information while empowering
employees to collaborate seamlessly.

3.    
An Analytical Workforce:
The ability to access and analyse data is held by a select few, for example,
data scientists or statisticians. For a new data culture to happen, talents
across the board need to have the ability to ask the right questions, analyse
data and drive actionable insights.

The study showed that business leaders in Asia are
also keen to take the use of data to the next level. They see the top five
benefits of driving a data culture within their organisations as enabling:

1.      Ability
to make real-time decisions (86%)

2.      Efficiency
in operations (85%)

3.      Improved
processes (82%)

4.      Better
business continuity (81%)

5.      Improved
customer satisfaction and retention (77%)

However,
the study also revealed that they are facing barriers to driving a data
culture. The most common barriers in Asia include:

1.      Perceived
high costs (49%)

2.      Data
security concerns (43%)

3.      Lack
of digital skills in the workforce (36%)

4.      Fear
of change (33%)

5.      Securing
budget (31%)

Asia
Businesses in Data Culture Catch Up Mode

Asia’s
businesses need to address the following areas in order to realise their full
potential as a data-driven organization:

1.      Building
infrastructure for data agility

88% of business leaders agreed that they
need to drive an agile business that is data driven however, they perceive
their capabilities in infrastructure to be lacking.

o   Only
43% of business leaders said that their data is accessible across mobile
devices today – a definite barrier in democratizing data access in the region
where 2 billion smartphone users are expected by 2019[2]

o   Slightly
less than half (49%) of business leaders in Asia felt confident that their
existing data infrastructure scales with business growth

o   Only
47% of business leaders are using data to predict future trends

2.      Data
governance for collaboration

87% felt that data driven collaboration across the
organisation needs to be enabled.

o   Data
security was ranked second as a barrier by business leaders in Asia in their
data culture journey (43%)

o   Only
48% polled claimed that they have a clear data governance plan to guide
ownership, storage and use of data

o   53%
of business leaders polled claimed that they have a clear data security policy
to prevent unauthorized leakage and threats

3.       Creating
an analytical workforce

84% of Asia’s business leaders agreed that it is
important to have a data-savvy workforce. However, there are skillsets and
culture gaps that need to be addressed in order for organizations to fully
embrace a data culture.

o   Only
42% of business leaders in Asia polled felt that they have employees who have
relevant skills to combine data to help identify business outcomes

o   Lack
of digital skills was ranked third-as a barrier which hinders the journey in
embracing a data culture within the organization today

o   Only
45% of business leaders polled have invested in training to increase the skill
sets of their employees in data capabilities

A
New Data Culture Needs to be Driven Right from the Top

87%
of business leaders in Asia feel that the data culture should be driven top
down, and there should be a formalised role in the leadership team to drive a
successful adoption of their data strategy. Most business leaders felt that the
data culture should be led by the CEO or the CIO. Emerging roles like Chief
Data Officer and Chief Digital Officer are also increasing in importance.

“Business
leaders in the C-suite, have a key role in driving change within the
organization. The Asia Data Culture Study showed that business leaders feel
that the CEO should champion the new data culture. However, speaking from our
own experience at Microsoft, in order for this to stick, it is important that
the values of a new data culture are driven and accepted across all levels of
the organization. This starts with democratizing of data through technology so
that more can access and are empowered to make decisions in ways which create
value for the organization,” said Hartl

Journey
to a New Data Culture

Business
leaders in Asia seem to be open to harnessing information in new ways. The
Study showed that they rated, in order of highest to lowest priority: real-time
analytics, cloud data storage, Internet of Things (IoT), Data visualization and
Predictive data analytics as the top 5 data capabilities that are of
importance to them in the next 12 to 18 months.  These capabilities are
clearly aligned to how they see their data culture evolving to meet their
needs.

When it came to leveraging IoT, business leaders in
Asia are more focussed on addressing security management and safety monitoring
as their top priorities.

“Starting
with a pilot and learning from that is key to a successful, longer term
journey. Customers need to think about new scenarios which will provide new
insights and new opportunities. They need to ask different questions about
their business, not just based on hindsight but about the future. Technology
has evolved so much that this is no longer science fiction, but is being done
by some of our progressive customers today,” said Hartl.

Microsoft
is committed to investing in building the intelligent cloud for modern, data
driven organisations. The open and flexible cloud enables them to leverage it
as they see fit – whether that means launching new business models, evolving
existing ones or transforming their organisations. With machine learning and advanced
analytics built in, the Microsoft intelligent cloud automates the basics and
delivers differentiated services.

This
includes the industry’s most comprehensive and advanced cloud data platform,
IoT services, CRM, ERP and more. The seamless integration of these services
enable businesses to be agile and make informed decisions in new ways. These
include moving from lagging indicators to leading indicators, making IoT
actionable, enabling customer centricity and loyalty, increasing speed of
innovation, empowering employees with insights from any device, all in a secure
cloud environment.

In
Asia, customers such as Laing O’Rouke (Australia), PTT (Thailand), and Citilink
Indonesia, are transforming their business using Microsoft’s
Intelligent Cloud platform. These companies are driving digital transformations
and reaping the data dividend through their efforts in driving a data culture:

·       Lagging
to leading indicators: For global engineering firm, Laing
O’Rouke’s operations in Australia developed a smart hat
with multiple data sensors which monitors the health of its workers on-site, as
its workers are exposed to external environmental risks. With the
implementation hosted on Azure, as well as a deployment on Azure IoT suite for
real-time data analytics, the organization has been able to expand their
toolbox by tenfold.

·       Empowering
employees with insights: Citilink, Indonesia’s largest
budget airline carrier, is equipping selected ground staff with capabilities to
observe customers’ preferences and note trends to deliver a more
customer-centric experience via data visualization tools with Power BI.

·       Enabling
Customer Loyalty: Thailand’s PTT is
driving transformation through advanced analytics and CRM to gain greater
customer insights on their usage of energy, interactions with the company to
increase customer loyalty

“At Microsoft, we continue to innovate and deliver
solutions that empower our customers to be able to achieve more. In the last
six months, we have brought numerous innovations to market to meet modern data
and digital needs. These include SQL Server 2016, Azure IoT Suite, the new Dynamics AX and CRM Online which
work seamlessly together on premise or in the cloud. Organizations are now able
to embark on their digital transformation journey more holistically in a way
which brings their data from hindsight to foresight, and to empower business
leaders to deliver enhanced value in this new economy,” said Hartl.

[1] The Microsoft Asia Data Culture Study
2016 was conducted in March 2016 with 940 business leaders from medium to large
companies in 13 markets including Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea,
Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. The Study was
conducted by independent research consultancy Asia Insight through a series of
online and face-to-face interviews.

[2] Asia Pacific will have
2 Billion Smartphone Users by 2019, Forrester, 2015, https://www.forrester.com/Asia+Pacific+Will+Have+2+Billion+Smartphone+Users+By+2019/-/E-PRE8244