86% CIOs in India Bank on Open Source for Digital Innovation

Red Hat, Inc. has announced the results of a commissioned study by Forrester Consulting, on behalf of Red Hat, about the use of open source in digital innovation initiatives in the Asia Pacific region. The results, highlighted in the study Open Source Drives Digital Innovation, revealed that IT decision makers in India are turning to open source to drive digital innovation to support business with new capabilities.

The research surveyed 455 CIOs and senior IT decision makers from nine countries in Asia Pacific. The insights gathered reflect that 73 percent of respondents from India regard open source as a cost-saving initiative. The survey respondents from India believe that technology innovation is either “very important” or “critical” to their organization’s success.

Fifty-one (51) percent of respondents from India report that their organizations have implemented open source solution while 49 percent of respondents plan to expand/implement open source solutions within the next 12 months. Motivated by benefits such as faster implementation and improved flexibility, organizations have considered including open source as an integral part of their strategy to deliver new customer experiences, services, and products more quickly.

Open source can also create new ways of engaging and fostering standards and collaboration. Fifty-three (53) percent of respondents from India use open source to both support business innovation with new capabilities and to engage in an open ecosystem of innovation partners.

Business and IT priorities in the next 12 Months

The survey results identified that, in order to successfully compete in the age of the customer and continue to deliver world-class operational capabilities, respondents from India plan to focus on three IT and business priorities in the next 12 months:

Reduce cost and improve operational efficiency (86 percent);

Improve customer experience (55 percent) and

Improve their organization’s ability to innovate (49 percent)

The above priorities have been reflected in respondents’ strategic IT initiatives in the next 12 months to transform both internal and customer facing technologies:

Sixty-six (66) percent identified consolidation of customer-facing systems with a goal of creating a single customer view as a high or critical priority.

Sixty-three (63) percent identified mobility for workforce efficiency and business improvement as a high or critical priority.

Sixty-one (61) percent identified integration of back-end systems-of-record with customer-facing mobile and web systems-of-engagement as a high or critical priority.

Opportunities ahead

The research predicts that over the next two to three years, the role of open source will accelerate. Survey respondents from India anticipate that their organization’s use of open source will increase in Internet of Things by 45 percent whereas, 43 percent believe that open source will help increase their agile hybrid cloud infrastructure, application development, and DevOps environments.

According to Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen, senior vice president and general manager, Asia Pacific, Red Hat, “Many anticipate that the pace of digital disruption will only pick up, causing wider and deeper impact on businesses, and every industry may soon find a digital competitor. It is more urgent than ever for organizations to find their own competitive advantage through technology. With this shift, open source has evolved to play an increasingly strategic role as a default choice for technology innovation to help businesses improve their agility, efficiency, and innovation.”