38% of Korea Companies Interviewed Have Implemented Compliance Programs, Compared to Only 24% Last Year
SEOUL, South Korea, July 25 /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 60 from Korea. The survey measured the understanding of IT and regulatory compliance, levels of compliance-related implementations, and IT spending directed at compliance-related activities.
In Korea, the take up of regulatory compliance programs has significantly increased over the last year. In 2007, 38% of companies in Korea indicated that they have already implemented regulatory compliance programs, compared to only 24% of respondents in 2006. Even though regulatory compliance programs have increased over the last year, take up in Korea is still lower than the APAC average of 42%, and lags behind leaders Japan (56%) and Singapore (52%). However, future uptake is promising with 42% of companies in Korea planning to by the end of 2008.
Like last year, it was also revealed that most Korea CIOs (92%) realize the importance of IT. However, senior management did not share the same view. Only 58% of Korea CIOs feel that upper management support the role of IT for compliance.
Other findings from the survey in Korea:
-- 93% of Korea's CIO's think that IT has a major role to play in
ensuring regulatory compliance.
-- The two main reasons why Korea companies feel compliance is important
are: (a) "to meet local regulations -- current and upcoming" (48%);
(b) "to do business/ trade with foreign companies" (25%)
-- Respondents are starting to spend more of their IT budget on
compliance-related activities. This year, only 8% of respondents
spend "more than 15%" of their IT budget on compliance-related
activities, compared to 42% over the next 2 years.
"Korea still lags other Asia Pacific countries in regards to regulatory compliance take-up. But in regards to future take-up, Korea is one of the front-runners with the majority of companies saying they will start implementing compliance programs by the end of next year," said Mr. Chinho Lee, Country Manager for Korea, Serena Software. "Local regulations are coming to the fore as Korea forges ahead to overcome underdeveloped corporate governance, insufficient regulatory transparency, and remaining economic domination by the country's remaining conglomerates."
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.
The survey also reveals that the main reason for starting up compliance initiatives in APAC is 'to meet local regulations (current and upcoming)'. Last year, the number one reason was to 'do business/ trade with foreign companies'. This shows that the local regulatory environment is becoming more apparent to CIOs and this is a major factor for company's looking to implement compliance programs.
"While the take-up of compliance initiatives in Asia has increased, the main drivers have also changed, with local regulations being a major factor. This can be expected with countries such as Japan already creating J-SOX which is set to go into effect next year. Other countries in Asia are following suit and developing their own industry regulations and this will be the main driver of compliance activities in Asia over the next two years," explained Mr KC Yee, Vice President for APAC, Serena Software.
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%.
-- 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. Yee.
For more information about the 2007 Korea/ 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
