Singapore - Companies in Asia spending big on IT

SINGAPORE: Companies in Asia are projected to spend almost twice as much on infocomm technology (IT) this year than elsewhere due to an explosion in data production.

Volumes are building tenfold every five years and companies that specialize in collecting the data are racing to keep up.

Healthcare has emerged as a poster child for the industry known as, Big Data. 

It's a transaction-intensive sector which, like manufacturing and finance, is rapidly increasing its uptake.

More than simply storing patient records, hospitals use services to streamline and extract information to aid doctors.

In the same way, big data is helping businesses increase productivity. 

Greg Unsworth, Asia Pacific technology industry leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, said: "You have to be able to harness it and make it into something meaningful. That's really not just about having the infrastructure to support the information or analyse it, but how do you have the repositories to share that information, organise it and make it accessible to the organization."

IT spending on storage in Singapore this year is forecast by industry consultant, IDC, to reach US$215 million, according to the latest report by IDC. 

Data volumes may grow up to 20 times in the next decade, and storage companies like Cisco, Hewlett Packard, NetApp and EMC are building a significant presence. 

EMC managing director Eric Goh, said: "In five years time, there is a particular looming shortage of data science professionals. And that will truly outpace the particular demand for this particular big data."

A big hole in the market exists because 75 per cent of IT budgets are spent maintaining current systems, leaving only 25 per cent for innovation.

Tim Philips, who is Global managing partner (Analytics/Forensics) at Deloitte, said: "It is the next big thing for us. We know that globally, that is about a $10 billion business. We think it will grow to $50 billion over the next three years and that will largely be in the analytical part of the program."

Deloitte said 10 per cent of its analytics proposition comes from Asia but that is projected to rise rapidly to 25 per cent.

Global technology company ABB joined the fray this week with a $10 million investment, and a promise of 150 new jobs, in a new region data centre for Singapore.

- CNA/fa


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