Lenovo released its Smarter Data Management Technology Playbook for Asia Pacific CIO insights 2023

Lenovo debuted its first-ever “Smarter Data Management Technology Playbook,” which compiles insights from more than 550 CIOs in Asia Pacific. The IDC-led report highlights the current status of the data management landscape, digital maturity, and the preparedness of CIOs to meet current and future data challenges and priorities.

The IDC study, which was commissioned by Lenovo, offers crucial insights on infrastructure readiness, data innovation, sustainability, and choosing the right storage partner.

Table of Contents

Digital Maturity

Businesses in AP anticipate that 52% of their revenue will be generated digitally by 2027, yet only 39% are at Stages 3/4 of Digital Maturity. A well-defined multi-year execution roadmap is indicative of Stages 3 or 4 for an organization.

With 48% of enterprises in India at Stage 1 of digital maturity, India lags behind. The transformation voyage is hindered by the absence of competitive pressure and cultural resistance to change.

Digital Infrastructure Readiness

The majority of AP businesses (84%) view digital infrastructure as mission–critical or essential to accomplishing business objectives. Nevertheless, only 38% are exceptionally or adequately prepared to maintain standard service levels, security, and cost-optimization in the face of unforeseen business demands.

Nigel Lee, Director of Storage – Asia Pacific at Lenovo ISG, stated, “Data innovation serves as a compass for CIOs, guiding them to uncover new business opportunities and achieve digital success. By leveraging the power of data, businesses can obtain valuable insights to boost productivity and remain competitive. Open, dependable, and secure infrastructure solutions from Lenovo assist clients in modernizing their data management infrastructure.

In India, where digital infrastructure is either mission-critical or vital for 87% of businesses, but only 33% are exceptionally/sufficiently prepared, we observe a similar pattern. To achieve stage 3 or 4 of digital maturity, organizations must implement future-proof IT powered by Hybrid Cloud platforms in order to utilize real-time business insights that result in investment-focused outcomes.

Data Innovation

Innovation driven by data is essential for digital success and generating an array of business outcomes. However, a lack of cyber resiliency, increasing AI/ML workloads, and limited data mobility in hybrid cloud inhibit data innovation.

33% of the 36% of AP organizations that drive data innovation strategically or relatively strategically invest in it to enhance supply chain operations. India’s top two investment priorities are product & service engineering (39%) and promoting competitive differentiation in products & services (37%).

In the next two years, 97% of Indian CIOs intend to accelerate their data-innovation initiatives. CIOs will need to accelerate IT modernization and transformation in order to become digital natives. This also addresses the main challenges associated with data security and cyber resiliency, the expanding mix of AI/ML-powered high-performance, and the energy costs required to support the data explosion.

“It is interesting to see that the majority of CIOs in India are committed to accelerating their data innovation journey over the next two years,” said Amit Luthra, MD – India, Lenovo ISG. It presents a tremendous opportunity for Lenovo to provide the finest data management systems and solutions to assist organizations in becoming digital natives and achieving investment-focused results.”

Information Administration

Increasing deployment options, whether they are public, private, hybrid, or multi-Cloud, have caused issues with data stored in silos. Investments in data storage and information management technologies for Hybrid cloud, Public cloud, and Software-defined storage are substantial in AP.

53% of CIOs across all AP geographies rank Data Management platform for hybrid/multi-cloud as their top investment priority, with the exception of India, which follows the opposite pattern.

52% of Indian enterprises plan to invest in software-defined storage solutions, 44% in public cloud for data backup & business continuity, and 42% in data management platform for hybrid/multi-cloud.

Unified Data Administration

Unified Management Platform is essential for achieving competitive advantage. Only 16% of AP organizations have a unified data management platform, according to the survey. IDC opines that 29% of organizations have successfully reduced the number of data management platforms and made significant progress.

Only 18% of businesses in India have managed to consolidate multiple Data Management platforms into a handful. Nearly fifty percent of organizations continue to use multiple data management systems to independently manage block, file, and object data types, with limited data mobility between public and private clouds and the edge.

Sustainability

Sustainability is a priority for 93% of AP’s organizations. As the younger generation becomes much more concerned about climate change, 35% of respondents anticipate a significant impact on brand reputation.

In India, 94% of enterprises have incorporated sustainability into their business agenda. Key business drivers of the sustainability agenda are now regulatory and compliance requirements, improved resource utilization, and attracting and retaining talent.

Amit Luthra added, “As Lenovo advances its efforts toward a more sustainable world, we are pleased to see the growing significance and emphasis on sustainability in business priorities.”

Beyond social branding and regulatory compliance requirements, CIOs and lines of business (LOBs) must collaborate to develop a set of discrete business outcomes in order to maintain and enhance sustainability goals. Here is how India’s businesses view infrastructure and data management technology investments as a means of promoting sustainability:

Management, provisioning, and orchestration software based on AI/ML to increase storage capacity utilization
Inline compression and dedupe technologies to reduce storage capacity needs
Private cloud storage should be used to consolidate departmental and workgroup storage

Lenovo offers Data Management systems, platforms, and software solutions that enable clients to effectively manage their data and information assets, from the edge to the central data center, as well as across a variety of cloud deployments.

Lenovo’s Data Management solutions support data mobility across the wide expanse of heterogeneous IT infrastructure, enabling next-generation data and AI/ML-powered enterprise applications.

The Smarter Data Management Playbook surveyed over one hundred Indian IT and business decision makers (ITBDMs).