www.mis-asia.com

Cover Story: It NatIoN 2012

IT Investment and ExpenditureWhat actions do you expect to take directly in response to current economic conditions?

75%1) Cut costs and optimise efficiency of existing systems

2) [Foster/Create] more innovation.58.05%

3) Implement new projects.40.25%

4) [Establish/Maintain] stronger partnership with vendors.38.56%

5) Restructure IT service agreements.29.24%

6) Outsource more IT functions.26.27%

7) Reinstate hardware/software purchases that were previously deferred.10.59%

8) Decrease staff numbers.8.05%

9) Other action.3.81%

10) No action.2.97%

IT Investment and ExpenditureIn 2012, do you expect your organisation’s overall IT expenditure to:

50.85%

19.07%

30.08%Remain the same

Increase

Decrease

The state of the IT Nation through 2012 is good. All across Asia, exciting moves are underway or imminent. Here is the report—in numbers.

BY TENG FANG YIH

Occupy Enterprisethe

The latest edition of our annual IT Nation study was conducted through the last few weeks of 2011. Work behind it involved the survey of information and communication technology leaders across Asia, including Singapore, Malay-sia, India, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Thailand. These IT decision makers of user organisations came from across the entire spectrum of sectors/industries; among the key ones were the Public Sector, Financial Services, Trans-port and Logistics and Manufacturing.

So have our IT/IS divisions here in Asia stepped up and gained greater respect as the single most important working part of their respective organi-sations? And have their leaders earned their rightful place as key participants in corporate boardroom discussions? They have occupied the enterprise in more ways than one. They may not, in numbers, represent 99 percent of their respective organisations, but the servic-es they and their teams provide power

more than 99 percent of operations at their organisations. Now is the time for them to get acknowledgement for that.

Have they? Perhaps the major

“We tend to focus on maintenance work rather than strategic initiatives. This will continue in 2012 as we are expecting a global downturn.” (IT) Singapore

01 March–april 2012

www.mis-asia.com

findings below will tell us how well they are doing going down that road.

IT Investment and ExpenditureThe good news is the (marginal) majori-ty of respondents–50.85 percent–expect their organisation’s overall expenditure to increase in 2012.

Perennial concerns dominate the top of priority lists for our respondents across Asia.

In response to the question, “What actions do you expect to take directly in response to current economic condi-tions?” the answers in order of priority were: cut costs and optimise efficien-cy of existing systems; foster and/or create more innovation; implement new projects; establish and/or maintain stronger partnership with vendors; and, restructure IT service agreements.

The respondents’ top five areas of focus in IT through 2012 are (in order of importance): automate more business

processes; improve customer satisfac-tion; improve information security; make my enterprise more agile; and, better manage regulatory compliance. The top five areas they expect to put more money into in 2012 are (again in order of importance): new application devel-opment and implementation; hardware infrastructure; network infrastructure; security and risk management; and, IT governance and compliance.

As for spending in 2012, the highest number of votes went to the maintenance of their level of investment in most areas. Where we should expect no change in their expenditure levels are: Business Continuity Planning; Customer Relation-ship Management; Data Warehous-ing; Enterprise Content Management; Enterprise Resource Planning; Green IT; IT Service Management; Knowledge Management; Open Source Platform and

IT Investment and ExpenditureThe largest group of organisations expect no change in their spending on the following.

Business Continuity Planning46.61%

Customer Relationship Management45.76%

Data Warehousing47.88%

Enterprise Content Management48.31%

Enterprise Resource Planning45.34%

Green IT47.03%

IT Service Management50.42%

Knowledge Management49.58%

Open Source Platform and Development48.31%

Outsourcing46.61%

Public Cloud Computing34.32%

Private Cloud Computing35.59%

Software-as-a-Service41.95%

Unified Communications41.95%

Web 2.045.34%

IT Investment and ExpenditureA great number of respondents’ organisations expect to increase spending on the following.

Business Intelligence46.19%

IT Consolidation47.88%

Virtualisation53.39%

Information Security and Risk Management55.08%

“We’re finally seeing some genuine innovation in storage, but vendors are not able to engage with anything smaller than Fortune 500.” (FSI) Global

“The economic downturn is expected. We may want to consider increasing spending on infrastructure projects.” (Public Sector—Government) Singapore

“Use virtualisation and cloud computing to save infrastructure investment.” (Public Sector—Nonprofit) Hong Kong

March–april 2012 02

www.mis-asia.com

Major IT InitiativesWhat are your major concerns regarding the cloud?

Security of data (hackers/breaches)75.42%

Concern about appropriate level SLA51.69%

Loss of control of important IT applications43.22%

No major concerns10.59%

Others5.08%

Major IT InitiativesHow has the priority you placed on Green IT efforts changed in the past year?

It was never a priority

34.32%

6.36%40.68%

18.64%

It has seen increased emphasis and remains

a key corporate focus

It has seen decreased emphasis due to the economic downturn

It has seen no change

Development; Outsourcing; Public Cloud Computing; Private Cloud Computing; Software-as-a-Service; Unified Commu-nications; and, Web 2.0.

On the upside, the majority of respondents (53.39 percent) intend to increase their spending in Virtualisa-tion, and Information Security and Risk

Management (55.08 percent). Increased allocation of IT budgets are also expect-ed in Business Intelligence, at least for 46.19 percent of respondents, and work in IT Consolidation for 47.88 percent.

Major IT InitiativesIn answer to the question, Has there been a change in the way your organisa-tion deems the importance of Green IT in 2011? 40.68 percent of respondents said, No change.

When it came to their top three concerns with respect to their enter-prise deployment of cloud computing, the majority cited the security of data (hackers/breaches), concern about appropriate levels of SLAs, and, the loss of control of important IT applications.

The top three uses of business intel-ligence software at respondents’ organi-sations currently are: to measure and analyse business operations data; to measure and analyse financial data in relation to business operations data; and, to create financial reports.

The element of unified communica-tions and collaboration software most commonly used at present by respond-ents’ organisations are the integration of e-mail, the control of instant messag-ing, IP telephony, and other business applications.

The most common response of respondents’ organisations to the social networking phenomenon in 2011: ban employees from using social networking programs. The second most common response: revise policies on social

“Labour cost is the main issue for us and reducing headcount seems to be inevitable in the coming months due to lower revenues projected in the coming year.” (Manufacturing) Singapore

IT Investment and ExpenditureThe top five areas respondents expect to focus attention on in IT through 2012 are, in order of priority: 1) Automate more business processes. 2) Improve customer satisfaction. 3) Improve information security. 4) Make my enterprise more agile. 5) Better manage regulatory compliance.

IT Investment and ExpenditureThe top five areas respondents expect to allocate IT budgets to in 2012, in order of priority, are: 1) New application development and implementation. 2) Hardware infrastructure. 3) Network infrastructure. 4) Security and risk management. 5) IT governance and compliance.

“There’s too much concern about cloud computing but not enough focus on internal development.” (Services) HK

03 March–april 2012

Cover Story: It NatIoN 2012

www.mis-asia.com

Major IT InitiativesHow is Business Intelligence software used at your organisation?

To measure and analyse business operations data61.86%

To measure and analyse financial data in relation to business operations data52.12%

To create financial reports48.73%

To measure and analyse financial and transaction data47.03%

To better understand customer behaviour40.68%

For other functions3.39%

Major IT InitiativesWhich elements of Unified Communications and Collaboration Software are currently used at your organisation?

30.93%

22.46%19.92%

14.83%

11.86%

There is no adoption of Unified

Communications at our organisation

Integrated e-mail, controlled instant

messaging, IP telephony and other business

applications

Integrated e-mail, controlled instant messaging and IP telephony

Integrated e-mail system with other business applications

Integrated e-mail system with controlled instant messaging

networking to give better guidance on employee use.

The most common response of respondents’ organisations to the BYOD (bring your own device) trend in 2011: ban the use of such devices on site and prohibiting its connection to enterprise infrastructure. The second most common response: revise policies that give better guidance on employee use and connec-tion of such devices to the enterprise infrastructure. The third: upgrade enter-prise communications infrastructure to accommodate the entry of new devices.

More than 42 percent of respond-ents said that the current economic climate has enhanced their organisa-tions’ awareness and understanding of the importance of Business Continuity Planning, though they were not looking at increasing spending on it.

Last Year’s DeliverablesWhen asked about how much value their investments in specific areas of technol-ogy delivered to the business in 2011, the following got the highest number of votes for having had No Impact on their businesses: Business Intelli-gence; Business Continuity Planning; Customer Relationship Management; Data Warehousing; Enterprise Content Management; Enterprise Resource

Planning; Green IT; Intelligent Network-ing; Web 2.0; IT Service Management; Knowledge Management; Open Source Platforms and Development; Outsourc-ing; Private Cloud Computing; Public Cloud Computing; Software-as-a-Service; and, Unified Communications.

On the other hand, 42.80 percent of respondents classified their invest-ments in Information Security and Risk Management under Most Deliv-ered. The same with Virtualisation, with 39.83 percent saying it Most Delivered for them in 2011.

Major IT InitiativesHow has your enterprise responded to the social networking phenomenon?

Banned employees from using social

networking programs

28.39%

14.83%

10.59%

22.88%

7.63%

14.41%

1.27%

Encouraged employees to use social

networking for work

Developed business-based systems to capitalise on

social networking

Revised policies on social networking to give better guidance on employee use

Upgraded training to ensure employees aware of social networking issues (incl. security)

Done nothing about implementing social networking systems for the enterprise

Responded in other ways

“Having cloud computing is an ongoing trend. The biggest concern would be security, whether you’re working with a public or a private cloud.” (Automobile) Singapore

“We hope that the cost of cloud computing can be decreased significantly.” (Education) Indonesia

March–april 2012 04

www.mis-asia.com

Major IT InitiativesHow has the current economic climate influenced your organisation’s approach to Business Continuity Planning (BCP)?

It has prompted us to cut our BCP budget

28.81%

42.37%

26.27%

2.55%

It has had no effect on our approach at all

It has made us more aggressive in our pursuit

of comprehensive business continuity

coverage, and involves greater expenditure

It has enhanced our awareness and

understanding of the importance of BCP, but we are not increasing spending on it

Major IT InitiativesHow has your enterprise responded to the BYOD (bring your own device) trend?

24.15%

22.03%

3.39%

22.46%

6.36%

19.92%

1.69%Responded in other ways

Banned the use of such devices onsite

and prohibited its connection to enterprise

infrastructure

Upgraded enterprise communications infrastructure to

accommodate these new devices

Developed business-based systems to

capitalise on their use

Done nothing because we are not keen on accommodating these devices

Upgraded training to ensure employees are aware of issues (incl. security) related to their use

Revised policies that give better guidance regarding employee use and connection to enterprise infrastructure

Word to the WiseIn their concluding remarks, the major-ity of respondents offered the follow-ing top three pieces of advice to IT vendors, who may well be their current or prospective providers through 2012: be more responsive to issues; reduce prices; and, be more realistic when citing delivery deadlines.

More specific comments relating to the issues brought up in the IT Nation 2012 study below.

The CxO of a global financial servic-es company said: “We’re seeing some genuine innovation in storage, but vendors remain unable to engage with anything smaller than Fortune 500.”

“We tend to focus on doing mainte-nance work rather than on strategic initiatives. This will continue in 2012 as we are expecting a global downturn,” said the IT head of a technology compa-ny based in Singapore.

“With an economic downturn expected, we may want to consider

increasing spending on infrastructure projects,” and government technology chief, also in Singapore, told us.

“We must encourage more partici-pation in the green movement,” said a regional technology leader in agribusi-ness.

An IT boss in the manufactur-ing sector said something worrisome: “Labour cost is the main issue for us and reducing headcount seems to be inevita-ble in the coming months due to lower revenues projected for the coming year.”

His counterpart working for a nonprofit in Hong Kong seems to have a strategy for combating budget issues: “Use virtualisation and cloud comput-ing to save infrastructure investment.”

Refer to Word to the Wise boxes on the pages of these stories for some of the more interesting comments from our respondents. Immediately follow-ing each comment are the sector/industry and geography that it comes from.

“In the current context there has been a lot of talk about cloud and virtualisation. Although virtualisation has delivered value, the cloud is still at a nascent stage for deploying mission critical applications. Our strategy will be to try and understand the back end agreements the cloud solution providers will have with the product vendors. There are licensing issues to be sorted out as well.” (Manufacturing; Energy) India

“The way organisations change their strategies based on quarterly results, IT should nowadays have to do the same. There is a large difference between strategies identified at the beginning of the year and what we deliver at the end of the year. IT has become even more dynamic and challenging.” (IT) India

“Go cloud.” (Hospitality) Singapore

05 March–april 2012

Cover Story: It NatIoN 2012

www.mis-asia.com

Major IT InitiativesThe largest group of respondents think their respective initiatives in the following areas Most Delivered in 2011.

The largest group of respondents think their respective initiatives in the following areas had No Impact on their operations and businesses in 2011.

Information Security and Risk Management

Virtualisation39.83%

42.80%

Business Intelligence34.32%

Business Continuity Planning46.19%

Customer Relationship Management39.83%

Data Warehousing38.98%

Enterprise Content Management43.22%

Enterprise Resource Planning34.75%

Green IT36.44%

Intelligent Networking42.80%

IT Service Management39.83%

Knowledge Management41.95%

Open Source Platforms and Development34.75%

Outsourcing36.86%

Private Cloud Computing23.73%

Public Cloud Computing25.85%

Software-as-a-Service33.89%

Unified Communications31.78%

Web 2.035.17%

Advice to IT VendorsWhat advice would you give to IT vendors based on your experience working with them through 2011?

Be more responsive to issues75.85%

Reduce prices60.17%

Be more realistic when citing delivery deadlines52.54%

Deliver better follow up48.31%

Makes SLAs more flexible44.49%

Share more responsibility42.37%

“Encourage the green movement.” (Agribusiness) Singapore

“The social network has many impact on many fronts. So we should use it in the right ways and be more concerned about user satisfactions.” (Education) Thailand

“The consumerisation of IT is a reality we all have to live with.” (Communications) India

March–april 2012 06