Retail industry in Asia-Pacific most active in leveraging technology: IDC

Asia Pacific excluding Japan (or APeJ) retail industry is one of the most active in leveraging technology to improve customer experience and generate more sales, according to a recent IDC study. The study termed 'Asia Pacific Annual Business and IT Services End-User Survey Results II: Driving DX Transformation in the Retail Ecosystem' claims that the retail industry in the region is at the forefront of digital transformation, with investments in DX technologies expected to double by 2019.

As per the report, the increasing demand for cross-border e-commerce, high-internet penetration, and smartphone adoption in the region are driving retailers to adopt digital technologies and invest in infrastructure upgrades. The same is also said to create many partnership opportunities for services vendors to aid retailers in their digital journey and thus creating engaging customer experiences and unifying commerce by transforming core business processes.

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Reinforcing this trend, IDC sees retailers across Asia-Pacific prioritizing the improvement of their networks, cybersecurity and datacenters to build foundational capabilities that further expand digital initiatives across their business ecosystems.

"With this trend, service providers and vendors need to adapt their offerings and integrate 3rd Platform technologies with core retail functions to help retailers in the journey to converge their digital and physical channels," says Rijo George Thomas, senior market analyst, IDC Asia-Pacific business and IT Services Research.

Here are some highlights from IDC business and IT services end-user survey:

The most common service categories adopted by retail organizations in APeJ include application services, network services and data center infrastructure services.

Retailers plan to spend 47% of their digital budget on external vendors to drive digital transformation initiatives.

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Majority of retailers plan to focus on building foundational capabilities to drive digital initiatives by improving their enterprise infrastructure and cybersecurity posture.

IoT is the top technology solution that retailers are planning to source from external IT and business service vendors, followed by next-generation security.

"Asia has a fast growing middle-class and millennial population, the buying and consumption patterns of whom have evolved to become more tech-enabled. To capture the spend from this growing segment, retailers in Asia are transforming themselves through the use of innovation accelerators such as AI, augmented and virtual reality, robotics, and blockchain to name a few," said Cathy Huang, senior research manager for services, IDC Asia-Pacific.