Tech modernization tops ASEAN CEOs' priorities

About half the CEOs of firms in ASEAN countries including Vietnam identify tech modernization as their highest business priority.

They feel technology modernization is key to achieving their productivity and customer experience goals, which they rank equally as their second highest priority, according to a new global study by the IBM Institute for Business Value found.

The annual study says the CEOs face key barriers as they race to modernize and adopt new technologies like generative artificial intelligence (AI).

The study polled 3,000 global CEOs and incorporated a survey of 200 U.S. CEOs from multinational corporations on their response to generative AI.

ASEAN CEOs see technology modernization as their top priority. Enhancing productivity (48%) and customer experience (48%) are joint second priorities.

The regional CEOs see technology factors atop external forces impacting their organizations over the next three years. They are increasingly looking towards operational, technology and data leaders as strategic decision-makers.

When asked which C-Suite members will make the most crucial decisions over the next three years, ASEAN CEOs including Vietnam respondents identified chief operations officers (62%) and chief financial officers (54%).

The influence of technology leaders on decision-making is growing - 41% of surveyed ASEAN CEOs pointed to chief information officers, followed by chief technology or chief digital officers as making the most crucial decisions in their organization.

According to the incorporated survey of U.S. CEOs, three-quarters of respondents believe that competitive advantage will depend on who has the most advanced generative AI.

However, executives are also weighing potential risks or technology barriers like bias, ethics and security. More than half (57%) of U.S. CEOs surveyed are concerned about data security and 48% worry about bias or data accuracy.

There is also a disconnect between CEOs and their teams when it comes to AI readiness. Half (50%) of U.S. CEOs surveyed are already integrating generative AI into products and services, with 43% saying they are using generative AI to inform strategic decisions.

Just 29% of executive teams in the U.S. feel they have in-house expertise to adopt generative AI; only 30% of non-CEO senior executives feel that their organization is ready to adopt generative AI responsibly.

“Given how much the flexibility and scalability of generative AI and the power of foundation models, in particular, are able to help businesses significantly accelerate AI adoption to achieve results, CEOs should not measure success in applying AI on a scale of speed but rather on the trustworthiness of the technology itself,” the study report quotes Agnes Heftberger, general manager and technology leader of IBM in Australia, Southeast Asia, New Zealand and South Korea, as saying.

“As CEOs rush to adopt AI to enable employee productivity and enhanced customer experiences, they must ensure the AI models have trust embedded throughout the AI lifecycle, from ensuring the integrity of the data and explainability of the system’s outputs to governance protocols that ensure the AI meets regulatory and ethical considerations,” she adds.