Introduction

2022 is signaling a recharge of economic and business activity, with data and analytics set to play a key role in helping organisations build resiliency and thrive in this uncertain landscape. Analytics opens fresh opportunities to innovate, helps drive transformation, mitigates risk, and allows organisations to remain competitive.

To gauge the current state of data and analytics, Sisense surveyed 1,047 data professionals from across the APAC region in March 2022. Respondents were drawn from across a diverse range of industries and shared their views about the value of data and analytics to their customers, and how it plays a critical role in their digital transformation initiatives. They also shared their challenges with budget limitations and lack of executive buy-in that can hamper their efforts.

The results reveal data professionals see a growing list of business benefits that flow to their organisations from investing and honing their data and analytics, yet they find the existing capabilities within their business are still far from meeting their potential.

As the pandemic recedes and business activity builds, this survey demonstrates that data professionals across the region are looking to improve AI and predictive tools and reap the benefits of more accurate real-time analytics, which include lifting the average selling price of their products or services.

The Promise of Analytics

Data ‘gold’ for boosting product pricing and customer loyalty: Data professionals were asked about the value of analytics and almost half (45%) agree offering personalised, customised data and analytics to customers could allow them to increase the average selling price of their products or services. Meanwhile, 43% of respondents agree that data and analytics would help build loyalty and retain customers.
Data and analytics critical for business transformation: Almost a third (31%) see data and analytics as having a critical role in transformation efforts in their organisation.
Deeper value of data still untapped: Data derived from business systems is regarded as the most valuable, yet when it came to rating their organisation’s ability to maximise the value of its data, respondents gave on average, only a 6 out of 10 rating.

Challenges and Obstacles

Data transmission, analysis and risk management remain top concerns: Almost two-thirds (61%) of respondents say they are concerned about data transmission, followed by effective analysis of data (58%) and inadequate systems in place to manage risk (58%).
Budget and executive buy-in top barriers to data delivery: Budget limitations (46%) and securing executive buy-in (28%) are the top two barriers to improving data delivery to customers.
Data best practice needs less talk, more action: 50% of respondents see data best practice as important or somewhat important to future-proofing business performance. However 15% are fearful of change, risk averse, say change is too risky and would prefer to keep the status quo.

Opportunities and Next Steps

Skills, training and data literacy remain top priorities: To improve organisational data strategies, 40% of respondents agree it’s important for employees to become data literate and adopt business intelligence tools as part of their daily workflows.
Businesses want better AI and predictive tools: Around two-thirds (60%) of businesses want better AI and predictive tools, more accurate data and real-time analytics.

The Promise of Analytics:

Data ‘gold’ for boosting product pricing and customer loyalty

Data professionals within the APAC region view data as ‘gold’ for boosting product pricing and customer loyalty, with nearly half of respondents (45%) agreeing that offering personalised and customised data and analytics for their customers would all them to increase the average selling price of their products or services.

Almost a third (29%) say they could charge at least 5-9% more because of the data and analytics they could provide in the products or services, while a fifth (20%) say they could charge 20-24% more. More than one in 10 (13%) say they could charge 25% more or higher because of the premium that data and analytics add to the customer offering.

Despite these findings, comparatively, respondents in the U.S. are far more confident in the way data analytics can positively enhance pricing, with four in five (80%) saying they can charge up to nearly 20% more for their products and services because of the data and analytics that they provide.

Data and analytics also have a valuable role to play in building brand loyalty and retaining customers, as observed by almost half of respondents (43%), although this is comparatively less than sentiment across the U.S. (86%).

On the question of how interested their customers are in having AI-driven insights that provide actionable, personalised intelligence in the context of their activity, more than half of respondents (56%) say their customers would be either very interested or somewhat interested.

Yet, despite the potential on offer, almost half of respondents (46%) reveal that they are still at the early stages of understanding all of the data and analytics their organisations are able to offer their customers.

Data and analytics critical for business transformation

Asked to nominate the most critical role data and analytics has to play for businesses in the APAC region over the next two to five years, more than a third (31%) of respondents believe that data and analytics are critical for driving transformation, followed by unlocking opportunities for innovation (17%). Other respondents identify data and analytics as playing a critical role in supporting business growth (15%) and improving customer loyalty, experience and retention (15%).

Of the advantages from leveraging data and analytics in their organisation, almost two-thirds of respondents (63%) agree it helps to gain deeper insights more easily – notably, more than a third (38%) highly agree. More than half (59%) say leveraging data future-proofs business performance, helps to service their clients and partners better (58%) and supports them in becoming more collaborative and less fragmented (56%).

More than half of respondents observe that leveraging data and analytics enables them to make more informed decisions quickly (54%) and minimise risks to the business (54%).
Almost half of respondents (44%) also observe that by infusing data and analytics into every decision business leaders make, the whole company benefits with increased opportunities to drive growth and boost revenue.
The same number of respondents (44%) also observe that customisable and personalised data and analytics in real-time, based on one’s role and at the point of decision (in their app or workflow), can improve business performance and competitive advantage.

Deeper value of data still untapped

Almost half of all respondents (45%) say that data and analytics are table stakes for their industry. When asked to rank the data sources as deemed most valuable to their organisation in 2022, more than half of respondents (53%) nominate business systems, while about a third (34%) nominate external sources, social networks (30%) and internal data sources (30%).

Almost a fifth of respondents nominate structured (23%) and unstructured (19%) sources of data, while a small number (6%) of respondents now also include the Internet of Things (IOT) as providing useful data.

By contrast, however, when it came to rating their organisation’s own ability to maximise the value of its data, respondents give, on average, only a 6 out of 10 rating. This indicates there is a significant problem of underutilised data within many organisations.

Challenges and Obstacles:

Data transmission, analysis, and risk management remain top concerns

Looking ahead at the challenges over the next 6-12 months, almost two-thirds of data professionals (61%) across the APAC region say they are concerned about data transmission, with almost a quarter (23%) very concerned. More than half (58%) nominate effective analysis of data, and the same number say relying on inadequate systems to manage risk (58%) as a key concern.

Some 56% are concerned about their organisation’s skills gap when it comes to managing their data, while more than half are all concerned about the risks and challenges of data security and privacy (51%) and effectively handling data storage and maintenance (50%).

Yet meeting these challenges is a ‘challenge in itself’. When asked how respondents rated their organisation’s abilityabiliity to tackle these real challenges, respondents, on average, rated their data analytics strategy only 7 out of 10.

End-to-end process to embed data systems across services is missing in our organisation, including change management processes to work with external providers.

Budget and executive buy-in top barriers to data delivery

Revealing the barriers to preventing the delivery of data and analytics customers need, almost half of APAC data professionals (46%) are constrained by not having adequate budget to make the investment needed, considerably more than those surveyed in the U.S. (28%).

Almost a third (28%) don’t have executive buy-in on what’s needed to push their capabilities further, in line with similar constraints experienced in the U.S. (30%).

Conversely, about a quarter of the respondents indicate external barriers. For 27% of respondents, the challenges are due to customers facing difficulties accessing the information, although this figure is slightly more in the U.S. (38%).

Meanwhile, 22% face industry-specific barriers, relating to legal and compliance requirements;, again, considerably less than the hurdles felt by respondents in the U.S. (41%).

To customise and personalise data and analytics for their customers, almost two-thirds (63%) say their organisation needs to better prioritise this function and have more support from executives within the organisation. Almost a third (29%) believe they need to recruit a vendor or partner to help implement a solution, or hire more talent who understand data and analytics (28%).

Interestingly, this result runs closely in parallel to findings in the U.S., where just over a third of respondents say they need an embedded data and analytics solution (37%) as well as to hire more talent who understand data and analytics (35%).

More than a third (36%) of respondents say they need additional budget so they can invest further in data and analytics tools and solutions, while 21% want better ways to navigate the challenge of legal and compliance issues. Meanwhile 21% of respondents also say they need to train customers on existing solutions to deepen customisation.

One of the main challenges we face is ensuring our customers are aware of the data strategy and the potential for better use of data and systems in their operations, as well as the cost and resources required to generate interoperability.

Data best practice needs less talk, more action

To ensure their organisation is ready to seize the coming opportunities, half of respondents (50%) nominate data best practice as important or somewhat important to future-proofing business performance.

When asked about the best approach for developing data best practice, almost half of respondents (48%) say the best approach is making small, slow incremental changes. A third (35%) believe it’s a case of making any innovative change necessary to remain operational/competitive, while 15% are risk averse and say change is too risky and would prefer to keep the status quo.

Despite these findings, when it comes to data reliability, cleanliness and quality in their organisation, on average, respondents rate their organisation a 7 out of 10, indicating the quality of data still has room for improvement.

Additionally, data infrastructure collection, organisation, and availability also rate 7 out of 10 on average by the respondents. Nearly one in ten respondents (8%) note that their organisation has no analytics tools at all, revealing some organisations have a long way to go in adopting any data strategies whatsoever.

Opportunities and Next Steps:

Skills, training and data literacy remain top priorities

Asked to identify what steps their organisations are taking to improve data strategies, almost half (47%) of APAC data professional respondents say they regularly update data/IT infrastructure, while 40% focus on retraining and upskilling staff on data management. Around a third (35%) regularly update data policies and frameworks, and 30% of respondents say that their organisations have made the switch to cloud-based, collaborative data platforms to improve their data strategies.

Meanwhile, when it comes to training/upskilling for staff on data management in their organisation, 46% of respondents rate the importance 8 out of 10, or higher.

When asked about who in the organisation receives training on data management, almost half (41%) of respondents include technology staff, while about a third (29%) look to ensure it extends to the CTO/CIO. Only about a fifth (21%) make it an organisation-wide initiative and include all staff. Surprisingly, 7% of respondents say that there is no training for anyone within their organisation.

While the responses suggest that technology staff are given more training, over 45% of respondents believe it’s important for the non-technical staff to also access data from various sources and get actionable insights to help make more accurate business decisions.

Importantly, 40% of respondents say it’s important for employees to become data literate and adopt business intelligence tools as part of their daily workflows.

Businesses want better AI and predictive tools, more accurate data and real-time analytics

As business activity strengthens beyond the pandemic, data professionals are looking to enhance a range of data and analytics capabilities across their organisations. Almost two-thirds of respondents say they want more accurate analysis of data along with minimal errors (61%) and better AI and predictive tools (60%).

There is also an appetite for better real-time analytics among 59% of respondents, including almost a quarter (24%) showing strong support. Looking to lift their workforce capabilities, more than half (58%) prioritise upskilling, retraining engineers and data analytics teams, with over a fifth (21%) valuing this highly.

More than half of respondents (58%) are looking to strengthen the insights that can be developed from data and analytics through better data visualisation, while 56% are looking to improve remote and virtual management of data. 55% of respondents see a need for greater security and privacy of data management systems.

Looking to improve aspects of data processing, about half (53%) want to develop more automated data systems, while 52% want improvements in speed for faster processing of data, and 51% want easier sharing and transmission of data.

Methodology

The survey was conducted in March 2022 across 1,047 respondents in the APAC region. The survey responses were divided by industry and company size, as well as by respondent role and seniority as follows:

The Sisense Future of Data Analytics Report 2022 – Asia Pacific Edition is an inaugural regional research study from Sisense across the APAC region. Plans are to field future surveys and accompanying reports.

If you’re interested in learning how Sisense can help your business with analytics, contact us.

Sisense Future of Data Analytics Report 2022 – Asia Pacific Edition