IDC has published the Asia/Pacific contextualized worldwide services predictions for 2020 and beyond titled “IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Services 2020 Predictions – Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) Implications.”

As organizational digital transformation initiatives in the Asia Pacific move from the proof of concept (POC) stage to enterprise-wide scale, the availability of the requisite digital talent and capabilities has become a key success criterion.

In such an environment, IDC expects the role of IT services providers to change from that of a transactional partner to a true collaborative partner, complementing 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,” says Cathy Huang, Associate Research Director for Services and Security at IDC Asia/Pacific.

Enterprise-wide innovations

As a result, enterprises gravitated to service partners who could help them drive enterprise-wide innovations at scale, modernize their infrastructure and application portfolio, and ground their transformation initiatives on strong security and data privacy principles. “As enterprises in the region deepen its digital transformation efforts and pursue innovative data monetization models or broadly ‘innovation at scale’, data security and privacy have been placed under unprecedented emphasis,” adds Huang.

Skill shortage worldwide is a key roadblock in the enterprises’ aspirations to scale digital initiatives. To tackle this, enterprises in Asia/Pacific* are focusing on building both technical and business skills by investing in country-specific local learning hubs, online and offline pieces of training emphasized on knowledge transfer, and change management initiatives from its engaged technology providers.

Key services

Some of the key services predictions that will impact the IT industry and both technology buyers and suppliers in Asia/Pacific in the next 36 months are:

Prediction 4: Innovation Strategy: By 2023, a quarter of all organizations in the Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) will begin implementing a strategy for enterprise-wide “innovation at scale.”

Prediction 6: Application Modernization: By 2024, 50% of organizations in the Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) modernizing their legacy mainframe applications will have modernized the underlying application infrastructure, with 70% turning to cloud as their preferred medium.

Prediction 10: Maintenance of Non-IT: By 2025, enterprise IT organizations in the Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) will spend over $5 billion on the deployment and maintenance of non-IT devices in the Internet of Things, supporting everything that can be “sensored” and monitored.

“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. 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,” says Rijo George Thomas, Senior Market Analyst, Services and Cloud research, IDC Asia/Pacific.