Research reveals increasing focus on mobility for Asian CXOs

Telstra Global, a leading global supplier of managed network and hosting services, today jointly released the findings of the tenth annual “State of the Asian CXO 2012” survey conducted by CIO Asia Magazine with Fairfax Business Media. The findings reveal that although Asian CXOs see IT as a key performance vehicle for 2013, new factors of mobility and social networking, enabled by cloud and low latency, have quickly grown in significance.

According to the seven-country wide survey, which included responses from 280 Asian CXOs, the majority of CXOs still see aligning IT with business goals as the top priority with cost control and business continuity ranking second and third, but new factors are increasingly adding to CXO workloads and requiring a rethink of long-term plans and priorities.

Findings of the 2012 survey include:

• Mobility/wireless is a top five priority for the first time, as the tendency towards BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and the 'consumerisation' of IT has an increasingly significant impact in the corporate world (46.5% of respondents see mobility as a priority).
• Cloud solutions crucial to business growth, followed by low-latency network infrastructure, and secure and managed services. These findings confirm the shift towards cloud computing to realise greater efficiencies and lower costs (32.8% say hosted solutions are now common across their organisation, with 26.8% intending to adopt them).
• Social media finds its place in the enterprise. Previously shunned by a large percentage of respondents, social media is gaining acceptance as a credible platform to engage customers and enhance brand value (78.6%). This bodes well for businesses looking to expand their horizons in reaching out to their customers, suppliers and business partners via this medium.
• Key business benefit from IT - reduced business costs. Interestingly, those surveyed felt this would be replaced in 2013 by 'enabling business innovation' followed by 'creating competitive advantage', pointing to a maturity in the way IT is perceived within many organisations.
• Priority CXO issues for 2013 include the increasing complexity and difficulty for businesses in achieving IT integration and coping with the overwhelming pace of technology change. Consistent with last year’s findings they show CXOs are playing an increasingly strategic role in organisations. While managing costs remains the biggest challenge for CXOs (47.4%), many appear to have more time available for strategic thinking (60% spend most of their time on strategy).

Telstra Global Managing Director Mr Martijn Blanken highlighted the key role of supporting trends like mobility through cloud based solutions and low-latency network infrastructure, which were identified in the survey as a business process enabler.

“It is evident that MNCs are increasingly demanding network infrastructure to cater for highly competitive business environments, such as high frequency trading in capital markets, online gaming and cloud-based services where speed and reliability of a service are crucial to remain competitive. To be effective for CXOs, IT should be seen as a value provider and not as an expense centre. Top management support is critical where business is conducted at Internet speeds and management need to see IT's value to the wider business,” commented Mr Blanken.

“The upturn is now visible and businesses are increasing IT budgets for 2013. While disruptive trends such as mobility and consumerisation of IT are forcing many organisations to rethink their fundamental management beliefs, many have embraced these trends to understand how change should be implemented and ultimately, to benefit from new ways of getting things done,” he concluded.