NewsStrategy

Consumers in China and the US will see the largest uptake of cloud computing and mobile technologies and lead global technology innovations, according to KPMG's latest survey findings.

KPMG's survey, titled "Global Technology Innovation," was conducted in March - May 2012 on 668 business executives worldwide, including 283 in Asia Pacific.

About 30% of respondents said China is likely to produce the most disruptive breakthroughs with a global impact; 29% of respondents highlighted the US, while 13% cited India.

 

KPMG's findings are in line with current objectives of the Chinese government, which is promoting technology and innovation-led projects across the seven strategic emerging industries, as part of aims to move up the value chain. These include clean energy technology, next-generation IT, biotechnology, high-end equipment manufacturing, alternative energy, new materials and clean energy vehicles.

 

Egidio Zarrella, partner, clients and innovation consulting, KPMG China, said: "The broader high tech environment in China is emerging at speed and scale, and is seen as one of the game changing enablers for the country's economic transformation. The survey findings demonstrate that China's innovation investment has fostered an environment for the development of disruptive technologies that is growing by leaps and bounds."

 

"The Chinese government is encouraging significant investment in three key areas -- shared services and outsourcing, as well as payments and cloud computing. The 12th Five-Year Plan is also driving innovation in these critical areas, in order to create a nationwide virtual environment."

 

China currently has five designated Cloud Computing Service Innovation Pilot Cities -- Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuxi and Hangzhou. And most respondents expect cloud to drive business transformation and become an indispensable consumer technology over the next three years.

When asked to consider what technology will have a major impact by 2015, 31% globally said cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) will enable the next indispensable consumer technology. In terms of driving enterprise business transformation, 22% said cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), followed closely by SaaS (21%), will have the greatest impact.

Mobile technologies followed as the next technology breakthrough, as almost 30% of global respondents said they expect the greatest business transformation to come from smartphones, tablets and other mobile technologies.

 

Survey respondents also identified Apple as the top company driving new technology innovation, while internet companies such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon are cited as leading the mobile payments market share over the next two to four years. In China, executives surveyed said that in their view, Microsoft founder Bill Gates was the top visionary and Jack Ma, chairman and CEO of Alibaba, the innovation leader.

 

Meanwhile, 44% of respondents said they expect the world's main technology innovation center to move from Silicon Valley in the US to another country in the next four years. Of those globally who believe the center will shift, most (44%) said it would move to China.

 

Egidio added: "We see that China is shifting from a low-cost manufacturing base to a land of micro-innovations, breakthroughs and a center for R&D operations. The cloud is already ubiquitous in China, many consumers don't realize how often they access it for services like emails, mobile applications and social networking."

 

"In fact, the Chinese government plans to invest US$154 billion to boost the cloud industry over the next few years. This is likely to further encourage involvement from domestic players, as well as an increase in foreign direct investments (FDI)."