APAC digital agility rankings: Hong Kong comes in fifth, making progress but still lagging

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Organisations in Australia achieved the greatest progress and ranked first this year, followed by Singapore, New Zealand, and South Korea.

Despite increased technology adoption during the pandemic having accelerated digital transformation, seven in 10 organisations in Hong Kong (69%) are still lagging in digital agility and fall into the slow or tactical stages of digital agility maturity. This is especially so as collaboration across departments was the biggest challenge for organisations in pursuing digital transformation, according to a study commissioned by Workday.

Conducted in association with IDC, the IDC-Workday Digital Agility Index Asia/Pacific 2022 surveyed over 800 senior HR, IT, and finance leaders from across nine markets in Asia Pacific (APAC). They all come from large-scale companies with more than 1,000 employees.

The study highlights the extent to which APAC organisations have progressed in digital agility since the COVID-19 pandemic, and assesses and ranks organisations based on the Digital Agility Index (DAI). From their scores, organisations are identified either as "agility leaders" if they are found to be in the agile/integrated stages of digital agility maturity, or "agility followers" if it is determined that they are in the slow/tactical stages.

Hong Kong ranked fifth – same as in 2020 – among nine markets surveyed in this year’s Digital Agility Index, seeing the DAI scores go up by 0.3 from 1.9 in 2020 to 2.2 this year. Although only three in 10 organisations (31%) are in the advanced stages of digital agility, the city sees a leap in that figure, with an 16 percentage point increase when compared to 2020.

Organisations in Australia achieved the greatest progress in digital transformation efforts and ranked first this year, followed by Singapore, New Zealand, and South Korea. Only 38% of APAC organisations were found to be in the advanced stages of digital agility. Still, progress is being made overall as this figure reflects an 18 percentage point increase when compared to 2020.

Full digital agility rankings in APAC:

1. Australia
2. Singapore
3. New Zealand
4. South Korea
5. Hong Kong
6. Taiwan
7. Malaysia
8. Indonesia
9. Thailand

The study also found that the lack of integrated HR, finance processes, and automation has hindered digital agility. Key findings include:

• 88% of Hong Kong organisations, HR and finance processes are disconnected, lacking a holistic view of resources for HR and financial planning;
• Only 7% of finance professionals have automation capabilities in place to detect and predict potential financial disruptions;
• 47% of IT professionals said their organisations have monolithic architectures with tactical technology upgrades;
• 53% of HR leaders in Hong Kong said they face challenges in delivering high HR service standards in times of rapid change;
• Only 40% of organisations in Hong Kong have enterprise talent systems and policies that maximise talent attraction and retention; and
• About one in three (31%) manage talents by having a holistic strategy with employee engagement and data analytics to identify training needs and growth areas.

“In the intensifying war for talent, organisations must adopt a strategic approach to managing talent and ensure that the right technologies are in place to support and engage employees holistically,” said Daniel Cham, General Manager for Workday Greater China. 

“Organisations need to emulate agility leaders and make the leap from tactical to enterprise-wide transformations in their culture, people, processes, and technology implementation,” echoed Lawrence Cheok, Associate Research Director of Digital Transformation at IDC. 

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