Your out of 10 businesses across Southeast Asia have adapted a “wait and see” outlook before they take the next step to level up their competencies in a post-pandemic world, a study has confirmed.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in the world economy going through a period of ‘reset’ for the ‘rebound.’ The race for competiveness has already started again, and countries that sprint forward now will leave others trailing behind,” said Rachel Barger, president and managing director, SAP South East Asia.
The top executive reminded companies that are complacent with such attitude amid today’s “digitally disruptive” world compounded by the pandemic would be left behind and may even become irrelevant.
“As businesses recalibrate their strategies for the long-term, it is crucial to shift away from an expectation to revert to normalcy as before. In a new reality, intelligent enterprises can ‘do more with less,’ deliver best-in-class customer experience, build resilient supply chains, while inventing new business models and revenue streams,” she noted.
Unveiled during the recent inaugural of SAP Forward Together virtual event, the report showed that 63 percent of 4,500 Southeast Asian business leaders surveyed have already witnessed changes in the buying behavior and motivations of customers since the beginning of 2020, although 21 percent of businesses are unsure, or simply lack the insight on changes on their clients’ needs.
Amid this shift, organizations continue to move conservatively with their digitalization efforts—many of them embracing a protective stance with the thinking that disruption from the unprecedented health emergency will pass in due course.
While businesses have transformed their operations toward e-commerce and online selling, smaller enterprises still worry about implementation costs of digital platforms and juggling operations to meet the sudden influx of demand.
In fact, only a fifth, or around 20 percent of entities, foresee a need to adapt their customer experience strategies to meet evolving expectations and requirements of customers across platforms.
Supply chain and operations are, likewise, other aspects that businesses are keeping tab on, with 22 percent of them expecting vital change in the future.
More than 80 percent of the survey participants expect significant/massive impact to change their business model, or operations, with just one percent projecting “business-as-usual” in the long run.
Regional business leaders, per the SAP research, are adjusting organizational priorities with a focus on business transformation (21 percent), enhancing customer engagement (15 percent), making business processes more efficient (14 percent), ensuring business continuity (12 percent), and supply chain resilience and redefinition (9 percent).
“Traditional practices never changed, primarily because they served their purpose. And it took a pandemic like Covid-19 for businesses to rethink how to transform those practices to digital engagements. Fortunately, advancements in technology have allowed industries to adapt to new ways of working and learning, “ PLDT Vice President and Head of Enterprise Digital Solutions John Gonzales said during the online event.
To support business continuity amid tough times, SAP has opened up access to SAP Ariba Discovery, the world’s largest business network until December 31 so any buyer can post their immediate sourcing needs and any supplier can respond to show they can deliver.
Free access to Qualtrics Remote Work Pulse has also enabled organizations understand how their employees are doing and what support they need as they adapt to new work environments.
The SAP Value Lifecycle Manager, an industry benchmark tool, is also made available to support businesses to measure, monitor and optimize value across their enterprise, while the SAP Experience Center Singapore provides an innovative space for businesses to deep dive into the latest technologies like AI, Big Data and data intelligence on the cloud to develop solutions tailored to the organization’s unique challenges.
“At SAP, we have the expertise to support enterprises in 25 industries where we have empowered various customers to confront many challenges. Our mission at SAP is to help Filipino businesses run better and improve the lives of Filipinos. With SAP opening access to complimentary solutions to help companies during this unprecedented time, we believe we can help support in the recovery,” said SAP Philippines Managing Director Edler Panlilio.