While IT spending is seen to reach $12 billion in 2025, the digital economy in the Asean cannot fully maximize its full potential for a lack of strong public and private collaborations. This is one of the findings of market intelligence firm International Data Corp.’s “IDC Future Enterprise Resiliency Survey (FERS), 2022” discussed at a virtual media briefing recently.

A study commissioned by Google last year noted that digital technologies could unlock P5 trillion (equivalent to about 27% of the country’s GDP in 2020) in annual economic value in the Philippines by 2030. However, long-term challenges such as cybersecurity threats, bureaucracy, digital talent shortage, and lack of focus on R&D hamper the digital economy to take off.

According to IDC, IT spending in Asean countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) may reach $64.7 billion in 2020 to $88.7 billion in 2025 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.3%. In the Philippines, IT spending is seen to increase by 32% from $9.35 billion in 2020.

PC shipments forecast to decline 8.2% in 2022 — IDC
Wearables market declines 3% in Q1 2022 — IDC

The IDC report also showed that companies need to take a long-term investment plan for their digital transformation and initiatives.

Digital resiliency

In his presentation, Sudev Bangah, managing director, IDC Asean noted that IT spending will be focused on cloud-based and data center services.

IDC underscored the need for organizations “to focus on building digital resiliency and innovation to be able to pivot quickly to any form of disruption.” This will enable them to get ahead of the Asean digital economy because disruptions will continue, as it has always been even before the pandemic.

This can only be achieved if the right support, not only from the government but from the entire digital ecosystem players is put in place.

“A clear national digital roadmap, digital infrastructure investment, upskilling of technology skill sets in the local workforce, and improved policies in data governance and privacy would be key to enable the base for a digital-first economy to be built upon,” IDC said.