Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 reveals room for growth – only 18% of Malaysian organisations lead with innovation mindset

Much has been said of the accelerating pace of digital transformation in recent years with the aftermath of the pandemic, the rapid proliferation of AI along with a host of other macroeconomic factors that are affecting organisations across the globe. While much lip service has been paid to embracing digital transformation, many organisations are still hesitant or on the fence about embracing digital transformation initiatives.

At the recent Dell Technologies Forum 2023 in Malaysia, the brand revealed the findings of their latest Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 that distils the key findings from interviews from over 6,600 business leaders from over 45 countries, Malaysia included,  to get a detailed view of the state of digital transformation efforts across the globe. 

Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 highlights and findings

A more refined study that factors in current trends in technology and processes from the prior Dell Technologies Digital Transformation Index that has been ongoing since 2016 and their prior Dell Technologies Breakthrough 2022 Study, the new Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 and the results show there’s still plenty of room for improvement for organisations in Malaysia.

 

The Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 study revealed that 53% of respondents in Malaysia, versus 57% globally and 60% in the Asia Pacific region including Japan feared that their organisations could become irrelevant in 3-5 years based on the state of their innovation pipeline and culture.

To say that innovation is the lifeblood of a company is easily an understatement as a company that stagnates in the present day is doomed to go the way of the dodo much like what happened to Kodak and, for oldtimers, Blockbuster videos.

By being at the head of the pack as innovation leaders, organisations are better able to weather boom or bust cycles and other difficult times, which makes it as important an investment as a large war chest or unique technologies or intellectual property.

In the Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 study, respondents were placed on an innovation maturity benchmark with a rating ranking them as Innovation Leaders on the far end of the scale all the way to Innovation Laggards for those leery or unable to change with results that somewhat resemble a bell curve. In that regard, only 18% of Malaysian organisations were considered as Innovation Leaders which is surprisingly on par with 18% of organisations globally. 

As innovation leaders, organisations are better equipped to survive and thrive. In Malaysia, innovation leaders are 1.4 times more likely to accelerate their innovation during a recession than Innovation Followers and Laggards who are more likely to slow down. This is slightly behind the global average of 2.2 times but is still respectable nonetheless. 

Dubbed ‘innovation resilience’, this quality reflects the determination and ability to innovate during tough times such as F&B companies pivoting to food deliveries during the pandemic when stores were closed. This innovation resilience directly impacts why Innovation Leaders are 1.6 times more likely to experience high levels of revenue growth versus Innovation Laggards and Followers. Fortunately, all this isn’t carved in stone and organisations can improve their state of innovation maturity through one of three innovation levers – people-primed, process-primed and technology-primed innovation.

“Technology continues to be a critical pillar to an organisation’s business strategy to help them transform and grow. The market dynamics create myriad opportunities for businesses. The Innovation Index study illustrates that the vast majority of Malaysian organisations need to make the decision on where they want to be in the immediate future,” said Mak Chin Wah, country manager, Malaysia and general manager, Telecom Systems Business, South Asia, Dell Technologies. “They can do this by aligning their company goals and nurturing a culture of curiosity by leveraging technology, people and processes.” 

For people-primed innovation, organisations need to develop a culture of innovation where ideas can make a difference and where learning through failure is encouraged. Unfortunately, 56% of respondents in Malaysia state that their company culture is holding them back versus 64% globally from being innovative. 

In the case of process-primed innovation, organisations strive to integrate a data-driven innovation process to nurture innovation across the organisation. In this regard, 41% of Malaysian organisations versus 52% globally were found to not align innovation projects to company goals, oftimes due to overwhelming workloads with 39% of Malaysia respondents stating as such (38% globally).

Last but not least,the self-explanatory aspect of  technology-primed innovation as a lever of innovation saw 87% of Malaysian respondents (86% globally) actively seeking out new technologies to achieve innovation goals for their company while 47% believe their current technology isn’t up to spec.

In this regard, the Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 shared that for technology-primed innovation, five technology catalysts for innovation play a key role – multicloud, edge, modern data infrastructure, anywhere-work and cybersecurity with the biggest challenge being complexity with many organisations juggling time, money and opportunities to innovative.

One of the key findings of the study and the challenges to technology-primed innovation are:

– Growing cloud costs
-Difficulties integrating the overall business architecture with the IT infrastructure architecture
-Time and money spent to migrate apps to new cloud environments
-Cybersecurity threats and insecure edge devices
-Lack of IT infrastructure to meet and process data at the edge

To peruse the  Dell Technologies Innovation Index 2023 in detail, check out their official link at https://www.dell.com/en-us/dt/perspectives/innovation-index.htm