Bangkok--1 Dec--PC & Associates
EMC, the world leader in information infrastructure, today revealed findings from a sponsored IDC report that businesses in Thailand are taking a more optimistic, proactive view of IT investments despite the current weak economic condition.
The conclusion was based on the findings of an EMC-sponsored IDC whitepaper titled, “Is Your Company at Risk? Preparing a Strategy for Information Management”. In comparison with the global trend which projects a more cautious business overview, Thailand businesses show a more upbeat outlook.
“Businesses in Thailand see these challenging times as an opportunity to focus their priorities on improving customer service levels and employing technology to deliver value to the bottom line,” says Ron Goh, President of EMC South Asia. “By leveraging and investing in technologies, companies will gain a competitive edge once the economy is on the upswing as they will be ready to manage the surge in customers and better equipped to meet more stringent customer demands.”
The whitepaper, conducted by IDC through a survey of 405 IT executives across India, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand, also revealed that improving customer service levels continues to be the key challenge amongst businesses in the last six months and over the next two years. Companies place emphasis on customer service as a critical component that will provide enterprises with a competitive advantage and differentiator.
Ron added that, “Technology is no longer meant for such basic operations as streamlining processes or facilitating information management as it has now been elevated to play a critical role in enhancing customer service levels to boost business growth.”
Facing challenges and setting priorities
The common challenges amongst the five Asian countries surveyed over the next two years are enhancing customer service, keeping IT costs in check and expanding into other markets.
“Companies are under tremendous pressures to achieve higher levels of efficiency with the existing technology they have now because IT budgets are oftentimes reduced or unchanged despite an increase in demand for constant upgrades. IT departments are often mandated to do more with less and companies that do implement new technologies must justify the business value and ROI of the IT budget,” says Ron.
While companies see customer service as a key challenge, it is also seen as a competitive advantage and product differentiator. As a result, companies from the five countries indicated that they intend to deploy technology products and services in more innovative and strategic ways.
“IT spending opportunities in the financial sector will largely be driven by regulatory compliance due to the implementation of regulations such as Basel II, HIPPA, IAS39 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,” says Peter Goh, Country Manager of EMC Thailand. “Moreover, banks are increasingly viewing risk management as a crucial business priority, and this is where technology investments are currently being made. There’s also a conscious effort to thoroughly and better define the intended benefits of IT projects within this sector.”
Peter added that, “Within the telecoms industry, there is a greater need to integrate 3G mobile, WiMAX and broadband applications into new technologies so the race is about which telecoms service provider can offer the most value-added and creative content on these applications in order to expand consumer offerings that provide end-to-end solutions on the go. As such, those require highly available, high performance and secure information infrastructures that are both manageable and efficient.”
“Within the manufacturing and private industries, SMEs will be one of the strong growth segments in Thailand with significant IT consumption, and these companies will typically look at the total cost of ownership (TCO) for the medium term over the next two to three years as opposed to return-on-investment (ROI). Customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence tools are also gaining momentum for SMEs.”
Peter added that deployment of technology products and services in more strategic and creative ways will also enable enterprises to derive more value from the investment. “A company that makes improvements to the robustness of its IT infrastructures will be able to maximize data protection and storage applications as well as consolidate and streamline storage hardware and applications to better optimize its existing information infrastructure.”
Public, private spending a top concern
The IDC whitepaper also revealed that minimizing costs, a perennial concern for businesses, is even more important in these challenging times as companies prepare for the economic upturn, and the public sector is no more immune to this than private enterprises.
“In Thailand, the government is stimulating the national economy by introducing an IT budget,” said Peter. “This is crucial as managing, storing, protecting, leveraging and optimizing the flow of information across all government agencies require a robust information infrastructure at all levels.”
EMC anticipates that it is able to support government and businesses in responding to these challenges. “EMC is continually investing in the innovation of information infrastructure technologies to deliver products, solutions and services that meet customers’ business objectives and priorities, help manage information growth as well as derive value from their technology investments,” concludes Ron.
Pranee Chalermtanasak
PC & Associates
Phone: +66 2 971 3711
Email:
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