New data culture is needed for successful digital transformation

May 11, 2016 | 10:00
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Microsoft Asia today unveiled findings from its first ever Asia Data Culture Study 2016, which showed that while 91 per cent of business leaders polled in Southeast Asia agreed that it is important for their organisation to have an agile business that is data-driven, only less than half of them (44 per cent) said 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 polled 940 business leaders from medium to large companies in 13 markets in Asia, including 269 senior business leaders in Southeast Asia, namely Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Indonesia. Respondents were surveyed on their organisations’ digital and data strategy, and readiness for the digital economy.

According to the study, 87 per cent of business leaders in Southeast 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 strategy should be led by the CEO. Emerging roles like Chief Data Officer and Chief Digital Officer are also increasing in importance.

In Vietnam, business leaders believe that the CEO should lead the championing of Data Culture within the company, followed by emerging roles such as the Chief Data Officer and Chief Digital Officer.

Business leaders in Vietnam seem to be open to harnessing information in new ways. The study showed that they rated, in order of importance from highest to lowest: real-time analytics, cloud data storage, IoT and predictive analytics, and big data analytics as important data capabilities for them in the next 12 to 18 months. In comparison, in Southeast Asia, the top three priorities are real time analytics, predictive analytics and data visualization.

When it comes to adoption of IoT, business leaders in Southeast Asia are most keen to address security management and safety monitoring as their top priority.

“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. Technology has evolved so much that this is no longer science fiction but is being done by some of our progressive customers today,” said Vu Minh Tri, general director, Microsoft Vietnam.

Microsoft is committed to investing in building the intelligent cloud for modern, data driven 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 enables 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 & 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: Australia’s global engineering firm Laing O’Rouke has developed a smart hat with multiple data sensors to monitor 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 organisation 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,” said Tri.

“Organisations 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,” he added.

By By Mai Thuy

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