Published on the 01/09/2015 | Written by Newsdesk

ANZ CIOs and CxOs name economic change, technology innovation and changing consumer expectations as the biggest pending megatrends…

A NetApp study has revealed the megatrends that Australian and New Zealand business and IT leaders believe will affect their organisations over the long-term. The May 2015 Tech Research Asia survey of 468 ANZ organisations, (90 in New Zealand, 378 in Australia), shows that the top five megatrends considered anywhere between ‘somewhat’ and ‘very’ disruptive are:

• Economic change (selected by 46 percent of CIOs and 49.6 percent of CxOs)
• Technology innovation and the internet (selected by 44 percent of CIOs and 47percent of CxOs)
• Changing consumer expectations and behaviours (selected by 32.5 percent of CIOs and 40 percent of CxOs)
• Population growth (selected by 31 percent of CIOs and 30 percent of CxOs)
• Ageing population (selected by 18 percent of CIOs and 26.5 percent of CxOs).

However, when filtered by industry other megatrends like ‘cyber-attacks’, ‘the rise of Asian economies’, ‘global warming’, ‘access to and quality of education’, and ‘challenges to healthcare and disease prevention’ feature prominently as concerns for ANZ business and IT leaders.

NetApp, which is advancing the case for a data fabric, said its research also showed that one in four ANZ organisations said they are already using data analytics to prepare for the arrival of these megatrends.

Tim Dillon, director of Tech Research Asia said that as the impacts of these megatrends start to be more acutely felt, the value of being able to manage data seamlessly across a hybrid environment to generate insights – and more importantly to take action – will become more apparent.

However, NetApp said its research shows that business and IT leaders note a raft of challenges with using this data.

These include:

• 30 percent of CxOs struggle to find people with the right skills to analyse the data and 31 percent have difficulty with timeliness of access to data
• 41 percent of CIOs find it challenging to secure their data, while one in five are concerned about a lack of data portability across providers
• One third of CIOs and CxOs are challenged to find cost-effective storage of data
• 28 percent of CxOs are also concerned their internal data managed skills are not strong enough.

“The research tells us that, on average, ANZ organisations perceive an improvement of anywhere between 18 to 32 percent in a range of financial metrics and operational activities by using data more effectively,” said Steve Manley, MD of NetApp ANZ.