HALF of Singapore firms in a new survey by IT research house Gartner said they were 'conservative' when it comes to adopting information technology (IT), the highest percentage among respondents in the six-country survey.
Only 8 per cent of respondents in Singapore felt that they were 'aggressive' in adopting IT, the second-lowest among the countries surveyed.
The results were part of Gartner's 2006-2007 IT Spending and Staffing Report (Asia-Pacific), in which it surveyed some 650 respondents across six Asia-Pacific countries, namely, Australia, China, India, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea. Of these, 125 were from Singapore.
"Interestingly, it is the booming economies of China and India that see themselves as the most aggressive, consistent with their current high levels of IT capital spending," said Gartner analyst John Roberts.
IT capital spending, expressed as a percentage of a company's revenue, ranged from a low of 0.8 per cent in Australia to a high of 1.7 per cent in China, which is even higher than the 1.2 per cent seen in North America. The average Singapore company disburses some 1.3 per cent of its revenue on IT capital spending. Gartner attributed this to the booming economies in Asia, with IT investment likely to grow further.
Gartner also found that companies in the Asia-Pacific region generally spend about 1.4 per cent of their revenue on IT operations, compared to 2.6 per cent in the US.
The average Singapore organisation has an IT operating budget of about 1.8 per cent of revenues, in between a high of 2.1 per cent of the average Australia company, and a low of 1.2 per cent of the average Malaysia and South Korea company.
Gartner reported that IT budgets for the average Singapore company are generally split into 56 per cent for operating budgets and 44 per cent for capital spending.
The survey also found that Singapore companies had the lowest average number of full-time IT staff at 15, compared to a high of 59 in India. This compares against the 160 IT employees per company in North America. Mr Roberts pointed out that smaller IT departments usually means that the IT employees are less specialised and are likely to require more assistance from vendors.
"Labour rates in Asia are still relatively low compared to Australia so in countries like China or Malaysia, there isn't the same drive to automate. We see ERP (enterprise resource planning) implementations there happening nearly
10 years after North America. With higher labour rates in Australia, this country tends to be an earlier adopter of technologies, mainly because automation delivers cost savings," said Mr Roberts. He also added that differing wage rates could explain some of these variations, but this also reflects the differing IT portfolios in each country.
Advised Mr Roberts: "Asia-Pacific IT organisations must take advantage of opportunities to apply good practices from experiences elsewhere around the world because in general, they lag in IT adoption."
Earlier this year, IDC said that some 60 per cent of the 3,200 respondents it surveyed across the Asia-Pacific region, including Japan, reported that their organisations' IT budgets increased in 2006. The survey also found that 39 per cent expected IT budget increases this year, and 52 per cent expected IT budget increases for 2008.
