APAC businesses increasing focus on CX and digital brand investment: report

Asia Pacific organisations have dramatically increased their investment in digital branding and customer experience (CX) in a bid to accelerate revenue growth amid post-pandemic challenges, according to the Ecosystm and Sitecore report, “The State of Digital Brand Study”.

Why it matters

Given the correlation between businesses decreasing their spend on digital CX and their business success, APAC organisations are boosting their technology spend in an indication of the significant focus that they are placing on digital and the big bets they are making to be successful now and in the future.

Key insights

• A key priority for APAC businesses this year is to increase technology use for greater business success (37%).
• Other key priorities are: undertake digital transformation (33%), improve agility and secure productivity gains (30%).
• 55% are raising investments in digital experience; 50% see better customer engagement as the top outcome of digital transformation.
• Businesses are increasingly using social media to provide content to customers with over 50% already using TikTok.
• Businesses are improving their CX by hiring CX professionals and integrating services from partners (49%).
• They are also using design thinking to improve customer processes (48% of firms listed this as a key initiative). 
• But one challenge businesses face is creating a unified brand experience requiring the involvement of multiple stakeholders.
• Another is driving an omnichannel experience that is complicated by the prevalence of social media.
• Integration across multiple data hubs and digital tools is also complex with many tools used to create digital experiences.

Quote

“The battle for customer loyalty is getting serious in the Asia Pacific region. This is borne out by the research data, which shows 32% of businesses in APAC found the money to increase their digital CX spend by over 25% – and another 29% have increased their spend by up to 25%” – Tim Sheedy, Principal Analyst and report author, Ecosystm.

Background

The report explored how businesses are improving their customers’ digital and brand experiences, and interviewed 615 organisations in Australia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand between February and April 2022 to better understand their business, customer and digital priorities.