Study reveals lack of transformative vision in Malaysia businesses

KUALA LUMPUR: A study revealed that 73% of Malaysian business and IT leaders surveyed agreed that their industries have been impacted by digital disruption today.
The CA Technologies Asia Pacific & Japan (APJ) Digital Transformation Impact and Readiness Study, examined responses from 900 business and IT leaders across nine markets in the region, including Malaysia, on digital transformation strategies.
The survey also found that 69% of the Malaysian respondents agreed that their organisations have been impacted by digital disruption today. Recognising the importance of digital transformation, a majority of the respondents (82%) are confident that their organisations are equipped to be competitive in the digital economy in the next three years, according to the study.
Despite the positive outlook, businesses have yet to capitalise on the potential of digital transformation today. It is found that about half (51%) of the respondents from Malaysia have embarked on digital transformation projects with clear corporate goals, such as increasing productivity and boosting revenue.
In addition, only 9% surveyed have fully-formed digital transformation strategies, while only 8% are looking at fully digitalising their entire organisations. These percentages are among the lowest in the study as compared with their APJ counterparts, pointing out the urgent need for organisations in Malaysia to swiftly develop transformation initiatives and to commit to fully digitalising their organisations for them to stay relevant and competitive.
“Digital transformation can disrupt the competition when it is approached holistically and used to create new products and services, improve customer service and even build different business models or revenue streams,” said Nick Lim, vice president, Asean & Greater China, CA Technologies.
“To succeed in today’s digital economy, business and IT leaders have to be bold in harnessing disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, data analytics and microservices, while ensuring that everyone in the organisation is aligned and working collaboratively towards a common goal.”
The research also revealed that most organisations are still rolling out digital transformation initiatives with the desire to improve operational efficiencies (56%), create different business models and/or revenue streams (49%), followed by workforce productivity and collaboration (47%). However, only 43% of respondents have the right technologies and technical skillsets to enable digital transformation.
The study suggests that a clear digital transformation roadmap is absent in Malaysia today. Only one-third of the Malaysian businesses and IT leaders surveyed are confident in their organisations’ IT capabilities to support digital transformation initiatives.