56% of Japan Companies Interviewed Have Implemented Compliance Programs, Compared to Only 33% Last Year
TOKYO, Aug. 9 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Serena Software, Inc., the leading global independent software company focused solely on application lifecycle management (ALM), today released the results of its 2007 Asia-Pacific (APAC) CIO survey. The survey, conducted for Serena Software by MarketShare, interviewed nearly 350 CIOs from medium and large companies across the APAC region, including 52 from Japan. The survey measured the understanding of IT and regulatory compliance, levels of compliance-related implementations, and IT spending directed at compliance-related activities.
In Japan, the take up of regulatory compliance programs has significantly increased over the last year. In 2007, 56% of companies in Japan indicated that they have already implemented regulatory compliance programs, compared to only 33% of respondents in 2006. The level of compliance program implementations in Japan is higher than the rest of the APAC region (42%), also leapfrogging last year's leader, Singapore (currently at 52%).
Like last year, it was also revealed that most Japan CIOs (94%) realize the importance of IT. But more importantly, other members of the senior management team are also starting to value the importance of IT to compliance. 64% of Japan CIOs surveyed in 2007 feel that upper management support the role of IT for compliance, compared to only 52% last year.
Japan CIOs are starting to feel a greater sense of responsibility when it comes to regulatory compliance with 75% of respondents saying that they can be held directly accountable for compliance activities, compared to only 67% for APAC.
Other findings from the survey in Japan:
-- The main reason why Japan companies feel compliance is important is
"to meet local regulations -- current and upcoming" (67%). No other
reason featured significantly with the next most popular reasons --
"doing business/ trade with foreign companies" and "increasing
potential of partnering with foreign companies" -- only drawing 11.5%
of votes each.
-- Companies in Japan are starting to spend more of their IT budget on
compliance-related activities. Last year, only 11% of respondents
spent "more than 15%" of their IT budget on compliance-related
activities, compared to 50% this year.
-- Even more companies in Japan will increase IT spending on compliance-
related activities with 60% of respondents saying they will
spend "over 15%" of their total IT budgets on compliance-related
activities over the next 2 years.
"Japan is now the leading country in Asia Pacific with regards to current take-up of regulatory compliance programs, taking over from last year's leader, Singapore," said Mr. Kunio Yoshihara, Country Manager for Japan, Serena Software. "For many countries, a major driver of compliance programs is still due to global factors such as doing business or partnering with foreign companies. But this year, the main driver for companies in Japan is due to local regulations, in particular, J-SOX, which will start taking effect in 2008."
For Asia Pacific, the level of compliance implementations in the region has increased significantly over the last twelve months. In 2006, only 20% of companies indicated that they had already implemented compliance programs - this has doubled to 41% this year.
Key APAC survey findings:
-- Japan is seen as the leader in regards to current take-up of
regulatory compliance, taking over from Singapore. 56% of Japanese
respondents say they have already implemented compliance programs
compared to the APAC average of 41%. Singapore is now in second
place at 52%.
-- The two main reasons why APAC companies feel compliance is important
are: (a) "to meet local regulations -- current and upcoming" (46%);
(b)"to do business/ trade with foreign companies" (30%)
-- More than two-thirds of APAC CIOs think that they can be held
accountable for compliance activities, compared to only 57% last year.
-- Singapore is seen as the leader in terms of budget percentage spent
on IT compliance (18% of companies spend more than 15% of their
budget on compliance). Currently Korea lags the other countries,
(10% of companies spend more than 15% of IT budget on compliance)
however, it has the strongest growth prediction over the next 2 years
with 42% of companies planning to spend over 15% of their total
budget on compliance-related activities.
-- The survey shows that APAC companies are starting to spend a larger
proportion of their IT budget on compliance. This year, over 25% of
respondents indicated that they spend "more than 15%" of their total
IT budget on compliance, compared to only 9% of respondents last
year.
-- The 'banking & finance' industry currently has the highest rate of
regulatory compliance in APAC at 58%. The 'telecommunications' and
'information technology' industries have the next highest rate of
compliance take-up. The 'travel & tourism' industry has the best
outlook with regard to future take-up of compliance activities with
56% of companies from this vertical indicating that they will
implement compliance programs by the end of next year.
IT applications are used in all aspects of the business, therefore to ensure regulatory compliance, companies need to run and evaluate their application development lifecycle more closely - costs and activities need to be traced and justified. But the application development lifecycle is complex because it is heterogeneous, global, and collaborative, and due to this complexity many non-standard, labor intensive processes exist. This leads to IT building applications that do not meet requirements, are late to market, and are of poor quality.
Serena Software's Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solutions help manage complexity in application development by automating the entire lifecycle and providing complete visibility into the portfolio of projects. This helps companies meet regulatory compliance requirements and also enables IT to deliver the most business value with their available time, budget, and skills.
"IT is involved in all aspects of the business and therefore plays a major role in ensuring regulatory compliance. As IT develops applications to meet new business requirements, companies can use Serena's Application Lifecycle Management solutions to automate the arduous and costly task of compliance, providing flexible and streamlined capabilities for tracking, controlling, and managing activities," said Mr. KC Yee, Vice President for APAC, Serena Software.
For more information about the 2007 Japan/ APAC CIO Surveys, please call Adrian Lee.
About Serena Software, Inc.
Serena Software is the leading global independent software company focused solely on application lifecycle management for distributed and mainframe systems. More than 15,000 organizations around the world, including 96 of the Fortune 100, rely on Serena solutions to automate the application development process and effectively manage their IT portfolio. Serena is headquartered in San Mateo, California, and has offices throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific. For more information on Serena solutions and services, visit www.serena.com .
Serena is a registered trademark of Serena Software, Inc. All other product or company names are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright (C) 2007 SERENA Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Press Contact:
Adrian Lee
Fleishman Hillard
Tel: +65-6424-6367
Email: adrian.lee@fleishman.com
