Skills shortage biggest roadblock to digital transformation: IDC

Access to digital talent and capabilities will become increasingly critical to successful digital transformation projects over the next decade, according to IDC’s predictions for the Asia-Pacific services market.

The market analyst firm published its services predictions for Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan), which focused on the implications of businesses in the region reaching the maturity stage of their digital transformation projects.

IDC said that skill shortages will be a key roadblock in the years to come, but said successful enterprises have already begun shifting towards building their technical and business skills by investing in local learning hubs, training, knowledge transfer and change management initiatives.

The key takeaway from IDC was that the role of IT service providers will continue to morph from being a transactional partner to more of a collaborative partner. A lot of partners in the channel will claim they’ve already done this, but IDC specifically refers to partners that complement their customers’ “organic capabilities with their unique resources, IP, and assets to support their individual digital journeys.”

“The Asia/Pacific region maintained its position as the epicenter of digital innovation fueled by the growing need among enterprises to redefine customer experiences, transform core operations, and strengthen business agility,” said IDC associate research director of services and security, Cathy Huang.

"As enterprises in the region deepen [their] digital transformation efforts and pursue innovative data monetisation models or broadly ‘innovation at scale’, data security and privacy have been placed under unprecedented emphasis.”

IDC also predicts that a quarter of all organisations will have begun implementing strategies for enterprise-wide “innovation at scale” by 2023. By 2024 half of organisations that are modernising legacy mainframe applications will have at least modernised their underlying infrastructure, with 70 percent of those turning to cloud to do it.

By 2025, IT companies will have spent more than US$5 billion on deploying and maintaining non-IT devices in their IoT sphere.

CRN would love to highlight more of IDC’s predictions, but we didn’t fancy forking out US$4500 for the privilege, but you can check out IDC’s analysis here.

"Going into 2020, the Asia Pacific region is rebounding from the escalating trade tensions, with enterprises across industries flooring the pedal on their digital spending,” said IDC senior market analyst Rijo George Thomas.

“Service providers will reinvent their role not only as connectors of the digital ecosystem helping enterprises scale their digital implementation but also as trusted partners sparking innovations that create new revenue streams."