Get ready to conquer these DX challenges in 2022

As Southeast Asia struggled to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses in the region have had to come to terms with the realities of embarking on a digital transformation journey.

In response to work-from-home directives and other restrictions imposed during the pandemic, businesses had to find digital ways to replace in-person interaction¹ - from virtual meetings and e-commerce to digital supply chains and digital sales and marketing. Automation became more widespread as businesses sought to minimise physical movement and interaction. There was also an urgent need to respond to new consumer habits shaped by the pandemic.

During the lockdown, many shoppers moved online. About 30% of Southeast Asian consumers increased their online spending while 47% decreased their offline purchases². This shift is likely to be permanent with consumers having gone through the difficult onboarding process of downloading the necessary apps and setting up digital payments and becoming used to the time-savings and convenience of shopping online.

The newly-formed online habits accelerated the growth of SEA’s e-commerce economy and raised it to the US$62 billion in 2020.  By 2025, this sector is expected to grow to US$172 billion.  

Covid-19 also accelerated the shift to a mobile-first world, and nowhere was this more obvious than in Southeast Asia. According to the report “Marketing in the era of Mobile”, the region accounted for 11% of global mobile app downloads as of Q3 2020³.

Other digital opportunities that emerged included online video gaming which reached billions of weekly downloads during the pandemic; online education with 55% of users new to the services in 2020; and digital financial services which span payments, remittance, insurance, investing, and lending.

The operational challenges and opportunities that emerged during Covid-19 will change the skills landscape and hiring practices in the post-pandemic workplace.

With the rapid pace of change, businesses will find it difficult to define suitability for work based on traditional academic qualifications. Instead, they will have to adopt a more agile approach to define the specific skill types required and leverage digital-based training to equip workers with the necessary capabilities⁴.

Skills that will be important going forward include basic computer and digital skills, statistical analysis, problem-solving, as well as interpersonal skills to foster relationships across various stakeholders.

The pandemic has also changed the way businesses hire the talent they need to execute their digital transformation initiatives. In the “great war for talent”⁵ that is expected to grip the region post-Covid, countries that boast high quality infrastructure as well as environment and political stability will be looking to attract talent from the rest of the world where there is a labour surplus.

The difference now is that the widespread adoption of remote work has blurred geographical borders and collapsed physical distances when it comes to casting their net for skills. Increasingly, businesses will be looking at remote work as a new way to secure talent.

Another important change that businesses are starting to make, to address the demands and opportunities of the pandemic, is the transformation of the enterprise network.

The network has a critical role to play in supporting business transformation initiatives and giving employers the ability to communicate with customers, access information sources, tap into company resources, and collaborate in teams.

To fulfil these requirements in today’s dynamic business environment, fast and reliable connectivity is no longer a nice-to-have. There is a need to re-examine network management to reduce disruptions and inefficiencies in operations.

However, many businesses are still taking a piecemeal approach to the network, for example, using MPLS circuits and Ethernet for high-performance private lines, and cost-efficient but less reliable broadband Internet for general connectivity. With this model, there is a missed opportunity to manage the network in a more holistic way and optimise utilisation to support digital transformation efforts.

Today, new software-defined network capabilities offer an opportunity for businesses to revisit how their network is provisioned and managed. With an agile and intelligent software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), the entire network is abstracted and presented through an easy-to-use interface, simplifying network management.

Mission-critical traffic can be piped through MPLS for security and predictability, and non-critical data streams can be forwarded through the Internet without the tedious and complex task of refactoring the network, which may involve expensive network hardware or specialised skills. Consumption of network resources using the XaaS paradigm also eliminates upfront infrastructure costs and allows businesses to pay only for what they consume and scale on demand.

For many businesses, the intensified operating conditions of the pandemic exposed the mismatch of skills and the shortcomings of an inflexible infrastructure, which hindered their ability to respond quickly and effectively to change. To progress in their digital transformation journey, businesses will have to remove these impediments with a different approach to talent recruitment and development, and a new software-defined networking paradigm that will position them to capitalise on opportunities in the post-pandemic era.

Speak to us to find out how to tap on new opportunities.
 

^1,4 McKinsey & Co, Tackling Asia’s talent challenge: How to adapt to a digital future, 2021.

^2,3 InMobi, Southeast Asia Led as a Mobile-first Consumer Economy in 2020, says InMobi Report, 2021.

⁵Nikkei Asia, A great war for talent' awaits post-COVID world: Parag Khanna, 2020.