THAILAND

Businesses need to step up investments in areas such as 'big data' analytics in order to stay competitive.

The weak global economy along with continuing political and social changes plus higher consumer expectations are putting increasing pressure on companies to invest more in emerging technologies.

Investments in technology are also seen as necessary to help companies lift their competitiveness as global trade becomes more open and challenging.

The strategic technologies identified by global research firms include "big data" analytics (an emerging term in the storage industry), enterprise mobility, data-loss prevention, cloud-based services and enterprise social media.

These technologies are driving global enterprise IT spending, which Gartner Inc forecasts will reach US$2.7 trillion this year, a 3.9% rise from last year.

A major challenge for companies is the phenomenon of "big data" _ the huge volume of information and detail from enterprises coinciding with the rise of social and multimedia networking and the internet.

The ability to analyse those large data sets will become a key basis of competition, underpinning new waves of productivity growth, innovation, and consumer surplus, according to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Leading companies are using data collection and analysis to conduct controlled experiments to make better management decisions. Others are also using data for basic low-frequency forecasting to high-frequency "nowcasting" to adjust their businesses just in time.

Successfully analysing big data also allows ever-narrower segmentation of customers and can help improve the development of the next generation of products and services. For example, manufacturers using data obtained from sensors embedded in products can create innovative after-sales service offerings such as maintenance.

Major gainers from the use of big data could include computer and electronic product businesses, information, finance and insurance, and the government sector.

Policies related to privacy, security, intellectual property and liability will also need to be addressed in a big-data world. In addition to having the right talent and technology in place, organisations must also structure workflows to integrate multiple data sources and offer incentives to optimise the use of big data.

Another fast-emerging trend is the use of media tablets, which originated as personal devices, in business. The use of the devices can not only support a mobile workforce but also can allow businesses to offer new tablet-based services to customers as a way to differentiate themselves from rivals.

The speed with which businesses have adopted tablets has been a major surprise, Morgan Stanley research found. For example, just nine months after Apple launched the iPad, 80% of Fortune 100 companies were either using the devices or doing pilot projects with them.

The uptake of tablets in business opens up opportunities for vendors of applications, security, virtualisation, and management software.

According to Gartner, the top 10 commercial business applications for tablets include sales automation, business intelligence, containerised e-mail, meeting collaboration applications, file utilities for sharing and document distribution.

Others include medical support systems, hosted virtual desktop agents to provide remote operations, social networking applications and "board books" for secure document distribution, as well as general enterprise applications such as customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning and supply chain management.

However, the increased number of employee-owned mobile devices being used in the workplace also raises the risk of more "data leakage points", said Tim Jennings, chief analyst for Enterprise IT with Ovum.

As a result, he said, companies will need to spend more on data-loss prevention technology. This will also drive the need for more rigorous IT system vulnerability testing and advanced master data management capabilities.

However, businesses looking for the ideal mobile device management approach must be aware of both country-specific employee data privacy and industry-specific compliance requirements.

Cloud computing is set to become mainstream in 2012, says Nitin Bhat, senior vice-president of the consultancy Frost & Sullivan. Businesses can obtain all the IT functionality they need simply by using a web browser. In many cases, they can bypass traditional channels.

The IT industry itself is being transformed by cloud computing as consumers and businesses depend more on smartphones and tablets. Increasingly, data reside remotely in data centres managed by third parties, to be accessed by mobile devices as needed.

Other industries such as the media are being transformed as content is increasingly streamed from personal clouds and conventional file downloading becomes unnecessary.

As a result, says Mr Bhat, many large organisations will carry out data centre transformation projects or build new cloud-enabled data centres in order to offer business units access to IT resources via browsers and apps.

Natural disaster risk is another driver pushing companies to review their IT needs and adopt cloud-based services to ensure business continuity by means of remote access to corporate data or IT resources with any devices at any time.

Mr Jennings of Ovum also foresees the wider appeal of advanced social media as more organisations engage directly with their markets, rather than via marketing services agencies, and look to measure the effectiveness of their investments in this channel.

"We also see continuing growing impact of social networking platforms on enterprise collaboration strategies. Facebook will continue to drive the evolution of employee communications as organisations look to enterprise social networking software," he said.