The world continues to adjust to the COVID-19 pandemic with cycles of change and adaptation across industries. The latest IDC wave surveys also suggest that IT spending in the Asia/Pacific region continues to be buoyant and up from the levels of 2021, indicating that enterprises plan to lean into technology and IT services to navigate the disruptions of the pandemic.

“As we start the year, the focus on executing on a Digital-First strategy remains top of mind for the C-Suite. Leveraging innovation technology has moved beyond a crisis response to accelerating digital transformation to take advantage of the new normal and become leaders in their field”, says Linus Lai, Vice President, for Software and Services Research Group at IDC Asia/Pacific.

As enterprises in the region push to accelerate their transformation timelines, finding the right skills to support new digital initiatives is proving to be a challenge. The war on good talent has taken its toll on enterprises, with 51 per cent of surveyed firms indicating that retraining their IT teams and acquiring key skills to support required digital capabilities (e.g., cloud migration, app modernization) have emerged as significant challenges enterprises now face on their digitalization journey.

Additionally, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics are finding increasing resonance and change and inclusivity on the global stage. Organizations in the region are working toward a stakeholder-led economy in which enterprises serve the interest of all their stakeholders and the community in which they operate.

Here are the top 10 key IT Services predictions that will impact both technology buyers and suppliers in Asia/Pacific for 2022 and beyond:

Sustainability: By 2023, 40 per cent of organizations will be implementing sustainability-related considerations into their business life cycle.

Multi-cloud: By 2024, nearly 60 per cent of enterprises will utilize “as a service” private clouds to support meeting critical multicloud needs.

Embedding IP: By 2024, nearly 50 per cent of all services consumed by enterprises will be delivered based on software-based IP assets.

Services Ecosystem: By 2025, to create a higher-value services portfolio, OEM vendors are going to outsource 60 per cent of field labour source staff to free up their engineers to work on these higher value services.

DEI: By 2025, reacting to societal shifts, to tap new talent, and to provide an inclusive culture, 25 per cent of A2000 organizations will engage professional services firms to build and execute a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy.

Data Science Automation: By 2024, as automated machine learning (AutoML) becomes the dominant method to democratize data science and speed deployment of AI solutions, 60 per cent of organizations will struggle with security, model management, and responsible artificial intelligence (AI).

Experience Design: By 2026, more than half of all large enterprises will describe experience design as a top 3 business competency, alongside traditional areas, such as sales, marketing, and logistics.

Skills: By 2025, 50 per cent of organizations will offer digital skills training to all employees “on demand,” resulting in digital transformation (DX) initiatives being completed four times faster.

Digital Resiliency: By the end of 2023, 30 per cent of spending on IT and business services will be driven by the need to strengthen digital resiliency to adapt to future business disruptions more rapidly.

App Modernization: By 2025, 80 per cent of organizations will modernize their applications based on drivers, such as data security, organizational flexibility and agility, and productivity gains, versus drivers, such as IT cost savings.

“Since the COVID 19 pandemic disruption, enterprise spending on IT is more strategic and has a renewed focus on removing the complexities that were amplified during the pandemic” says Rijo George Thomas, Research Manager, Software and IT Services research, IDC Asia/Pacific. ” Multiple IDC surveys have indicated that IT service buyers are moving beyond cost saving mandates to partner with external service providers, influenced by drivers such as IT agility, security, resiliency, etc.”

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