Paessler AG, a leading provider of IT monitoring solutions, has commissioned Intuit-Research to assess the current state of sustainability practices among businesses in Australia, New Zealand and ASEAN, which
explores the drivers and barriers to implementing sustainable IT practices. The findings highlight the crucial role of
IT monitoring in ensuring the success of sustainable IT strategies, which serve as a precursor to digital
transformation.
Paessler's survey involved in-depth interviews with 200 business decision-makers from large enterprises with revenues
ranging from 50 million to over 1 billion USD across three key sectors: Manufacturing, Essential Services (including
Utilities, Public Transport, and Hospitals), and Tech/Telecom/Data centres, a fifth of these were from Australia and New
Zealand (ANZ) organisations.
The research indicates an optimistic business outlook over the next three years in the ANZ region, with 67 per cent of
businesses stating they were very optimistic. Meanwhile, those in Singapore had a more conservative sentiment, with 23
per cent expressing uncertainty or pessimism. This positive outlook for ANZ bodes well for investments in priority areas
to drive future business growth; however, environmentally conscious investors may steer clear of businesses that do not
have an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) sustainability scorecard.
The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation efforts across all markets and sectors, leading to higher growth
rates and improved resilience despite supply chain disruptions. In keeping with this trend, digital transformation
emerges as the top priority for businesses across the ASEAN markets (66 per cent), whereas only 38 per cent of ANZ
businesses stated it as a priority.
“Digital transformation can enable sustainability by making businesses more efficient, reducing their environmental
impact, and helping them meet sustainability goals, so it is concerning that there is a disconnect for businesses in
Australia and New Zealand with a much lower share seeing digital transformation as a priority,” said Amit Phatak,
Director and Partner, Intuit-Research.
Since the pandemic, the priority for businesses in ANZ is innovation to drive growth (60 per cent) followed by
increasing efficiency and productivity (55 per cent) whilst sustainability including ESG practices is the third most
important priority for ANZ businesses (50 per cent). On the other hand, Australian businesses are the furthest along
when it comes to having a clear sustainability strategy and acting on it (63 per cent versus 44 per cent for ASEAN).
Despite embracing sustainability and ESG adoption, businesses in ANZ are significantly behind their ASEAN peers
regarding their sustainable IT strategies, with only 48 per cent already having one, whereas in ASEAN it is 72 per cent.
However, the remaining ANZ businesses (52 per cent) plan to have one within the next year.
All the ANZ organisations Intuit-Research spoke to said that monitoring their IT systems and infrastructure had enabled
them to reduce emissions, which is the key sustainability focus for the ANZ firms. Due to their infrastructure
monitoring, many adopted other sustainable IT strategies such as optimising power usage, hardware utilisation and
improving energy efficiency.
Manufacturing and Essential Services sectors prioritise diversifying and tracking supply chains in real-time across
ASEAN (60 per cent), while Tech/Telecom and Data centres emphasise sustainable IT strategies, greener data centres, and
on-premise to cloud migration (80 per cent).
Despite sustainable IT strategies being on the radar for 100 per cent of businesses in ANZ, most believe there is room
for improvement in their capabilities with only 62 per cent of ANZ businesses acknowledging moderate to low or no
in-house competency in sustainability practices.
The top barrier to adopting sustainability practices for ANZ businesses is the lack of clarity from governing bodies (50
per cent) followed by the cost of deployment (48 per cent) and the lack of technical know-how on planning and the
implementation of sustainable practices (48 per cent).
Sustainability and digital transformation are often perceived as separate initiatives, leading to a fragmented approach
to developing sustainability frameworks. Many ANZ businesses have focused on achieving specific corporate metrics
related to emissions, recycling, water or energy consumption. Reputation (45 per cent), industry standards (36 per
cent), and regulatory compliance (24 per cent) were the main drivers for adopting sustainable frameworks in ANZ.
“Paessler emphasises the interconnectedness of building a robust IT strategy, digital transformation strategy and
sustainability framework. Businesses must overcome siloed approaches and recognise that these areas are part of the same
puzzle. By improving awareness and knowledge of sustainable IT strategies, backed by effective IT monitoring provided by
solutions like Paessler PRTG, businesses can reduce their carbon footprint, become net neutral, and accelerate progress
towards achieving their sustainable development goals,” said Felix Berndt, regional manager for Asia Pacific at Paessler
AG.
The report is available for download here.About Paessler AG
Paessler believes monitoring plays a vital part in reducing humankind's consumption of resources. Monitoring data helps
its customers save resources, from optimising their IT, OT and IoT infrastructures to reducing energy consumption or
emissions – for our future and our environment. That is why Paessler offers monitoring solutions for businesses across
all industries and all sizes, from SMB to large enterprises. Paessler works with renowned partners, and together they
tackle the monitoring challenges of an ever-changing world.
Since 1997, when Paessler first introduced PRTG Network Monitor, it has combined its in-depth monitoring knowledge with
an innovative spirit. Today, more than 500,000 users in over 170 countries rely on PRTG and other Paessler solutions to
monitor their complex IT, OT and IoT infrastructures. Paessler's products empower its customers to monitor everything,
and thus help them optimise their resources.
Learn more about Paessler and its products at www.paessler.com