Businesses experience a clear disconnect between their sustainability practices and digital transformation journeys: Paessler Report

Singapore, 27 June 2023 – A clear disconnect exists between sustainability practices and Digital Transformation initiatives across organizations in Singapore, according to a recent report by Paessler, the monitoring experts for IT infrastructures and networks. Titled Keeping Watch: Monitoring Your Path to Sustainable IT, the report aims to shed light on the current state of sustainability practices among businesses, and dives into drivers and barriers in deploying sustainable IT practices. The report revealed the top barriers to adopting sustainability practices in Singapore: balancing the ESG metrics with growth targets (65%), cost of deployment to business (43%), lack of clarity from government bodies (48%) and lack of measuring ROI (53%).

While most businesses across the ASEAN and ANZ regions are optimistic about the business outlook over the next three years, businesses in Singapore are most conservative with 23% being unsure or pessimistic about their business outlook. The report revealed businesses in Singapore view sustainability and digital transformation as separate silos and not as being intertwined. Organizations are working on developing sustainability frameworks and digital transformation strategies in a piecemeal manner. As a result, their resources, whether budgets, time or skills involved, are less effective. They also lack the capabilities and the expertise to develop a sustainability framework and work on it, clearly highlighting a disconnect between the engaged sustainability practices and their digital transformation journeys.

At the same time, organizations in Singapore are realizing the benefits of IT infrastructure monitoring, a key cog in an organization’s IT strategy to help optimize energy consumption (81%), reduce emissions (95%), analyze the need for IT equipment (95%) and to quantify the volume of resources saved (81%). Therefore, a sustainable IT strategy backed by a comprehensive monitoring framework must be a vital part of the business operations. This will ensure sourcing material, production processes and all other components of a sustainable business can be integrated by the overarching digital transformation strategy.

With Singapore’s GDP growth forecast for 2023 expected to rise by 0.5 to 2.5 %^[1], businesses are focusing on digital transformation, sustainability and increasing productivity and efficiency as high priority areas to be better positioned as the global economy slows^[2]. “Many businesses see sustainability and profitability as a contradiction, but when the right values are measured, it results in cost efficiency and a competitive lead. It is imperative to build a robust IT strategy, a digital transformation strategy and develop a sustainability framework that are all integrated in a comprehensive IT monitoring framework. Bridging the gap between digital transformation and sustainability to make data-based decisions can result in resource optimization and bring economic benefits for businesses,” said Felix Berndt, Regional Sales Manager of Asia Pacific, Paessler.

^[1] Source: Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) announcement

^[2] Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence