Because CEOs in Asia Pacific say conventional technologies such as cloud, ERP, analytics and CRM will assist in improving productivity, CIO need to take additional steps to guide CEOs for investing in digital transformation.
45 percent of Asia Pacific CEOs think of digital transformation as a way to optimize their current business versus 42 percent globally.
Gartner said CIOs need to take on an evangelizing role with the CEO and other business leaders about the transformative possibilities of digital business using real examples. Many business leaders still cannot describe digital business well, and need education.
18 percent of Asia Pacific organizations have taken an equity stake in a technology or digital business entity, compared with 24 percent globally.
Gartner said Asia Pacific CEOs prefer conventional technologies than technologies that support digital transformation such as digital environments, blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, artificial intelligence (AI) and 3D printing.
CEOs in Asia Pacific expect productivity in their organizations to increase by 24 percent by the end of 2018, with revenue (cited by 26 percent of respondents) and profitability (15 percent) as the top two metrics of success.
“Asia Pacific CEOs want to increase profit margins while maintaining sales growth, and they expect IT to play a strong role in this,” said Partha Iyengar, vice president and Gartner Fellow.
Gartner said Asia Pacific firms aren’t moving fast enough to capitalize on this potential. Their focus on conventional technologies will have less of a transformative effect than more innovative technologies.
Asia Pacific CEOs expect IT to play a strong role in fueling this profitable growth. IT-related appears as the second business priority after growth, reflecting the importance CEOs give IT.
Asia Pacific companies are focused on increasing profit than revenue growth. Digital business offers a way for Asia Pacific firms to lower their cost structure and increase margins.
Asia Pacific enterprises are slightly behind global counterparts in terms of digital business maturity, with 20 percent of Asia Pacific CEOs describing their enterprise as digital to the core, compared with 22 percent globally. Asia Pacific firms are also slightly behind global counterparts in the phase of digital business they are in.
