PH firms speeding up digital shift

Philippine organizations are speeding up their shift to digital during the COVID-19 pandemic but the pace of innovation is still slower than their peers in the region, a new study from Microsoft and IDC Asia Pacific showed.

The speed by which organizations can adapt also has implications for future prospects in business and growth, the study noted.

According to Microsoft-IDC, 82 percent of organizations in the country were “speeding up digitalization to adapt to the new reality.”

This includes launching digital products, using e-payments, ecommerce and automation.

The country’s rate of adopting a so-called culture of innovation has increased by 4 percent. In comparison, organizations in Asia-Pacific saw an 11-percent growth in culture of innovation maturity.

The study defines this culture as the combination of technology, processes, data and people that ultimately allows organizations to sustain innovation.

“Innovation is no longer an option, but a necessity. We’ve seen how the recent crisis spurred transformation across the region and organizations will have to integrate the ability to innovate into their core to recover,” Microsoft Philippines country general manager Andres Ortola said in a statement.

Daniel-Zoe Jimenez, associate vice president and head of digital transformation of IDC-Asia Pacific, noted that Philippine organizations have nevertheless found innovation to be “easier” than before the pandemic.

“Organizations in the Philippines have realized how much their ability to innovate fuels their performance and business resilience during the crisis,” he said.

According to Microsoft-IDC, 44 percent of Philippine organizations found it difficult to innovate versus 77 percent before COVID-19 arrived.

With Asia-Pacific organizations seeing a faster growth in innovation maturity versus the Philippines, the study noted that they were also expecting larger businesses growth.

“Demonstrating their stronger propensity for resilience and adaptability, 2.7 times more leaders in Asia-Pacific, as compared with organizations in the Philippines, expect an increase in their revenue and one in three of them expect to increase their market share despite the crisis,” Microsoft-IDC said.

The study surveyed 213 business decision makers and 231 workers in the Philippines within a six-month period before and since the COVID-19 pandemic started. INQ