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The need to accelerate growth and revenue, while cutting overall expenses and efficiently managing risk, will drive the use of business analytics in the CFO's office across the Asia-Pacific region, says the International Data Corporation.

The need to be resilient enough to maintain profitability in the changing market conditions has increased the weight of the CFOs' challenges.

The CFO is confronted with the need to have better insights in order to improve cash flows and productivity, as well as trying to distribute resources in the most efficient manner.

Over 65% of the 1,300 CIOs and IT decision makers who participated in a recent Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) survey consider business analytics a top priority for their organisations – both in the short and long term.

"Organisations across the region are placing strong emphasis on improving performance, while obtaining faster returns on assets, people and real estate," says Daniel-Zoe Jimenez, Program Manager of Business Analytics and Enterprise Applications at IDC Asia/Pacific. "The focus is on measuring (e.g. past performance), predicting (e.g. business outcomes) and preventing (e.g. poor planning and customer churn)."

For the mature markets where increased competition will drive laser focus in defensive strategies, IDC sees BA being used to improve cost control and customer loyalty, as well as to optimize business operations.

"Similarly, as businesses in Asia invest to drive growth in emerging markets, they are harnessing analytics-led solutions to gain better customer insights, manage risk and financial metrics more effectively, and at the same time, strive for unique market differentiation," notes Jimenez.

In 2012, IDC expects governments, utilities and other related organisations in this region to take a deeper interest in business analytics and budget for the investments in analytical tools, techniques, and methodologies that would enable them to prevent economic fall-out, as well as quickly make fact-based decisions during emergency responses to help ensure business continuity.

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