SINGAPORE, 17 SEPTEMBER 2009 – A survey by Emerson Power Network indicates that there has been a quick turnaround, from March 2009 to August 2009, on the respondents’ confidence on the local economy and their overall company’s performance for the next six months.
This is according to a survey, ‘Market Pulse Asia’, by Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson and a leader in enabling business-critical continuity. The survey, now in its fourth version since its launch in April 2008, polled hundreds of IT professionals across Asia. The demographic makeup of the August survey included end-users (53 per cent), influencers (35 per cent, up from 26 per cent in March), and IT resellers (12 per cent).
Key findings
“The key findings of the August survey show a reversal in confidence from negative [in early 2009] to positive from the majority of respondents, although business has indicated that deployment of IT projects (project pipeline) is still lagging,” noted the survey. “Importantly, energy efficiency is now considered the top priority by the respondents, with density [cooling] and availability [uptime] following in second and third respectively. This marks another reversal of pre-recession priorities, when availability was consistent as the number one priority.”
One notable highlight is that participating companies from Southeast Asia (SEA) displayed high confidence in terms of overall economic outlook, next to Australia and India. SEA companies’ confidence ranked second on their own business performance, after Indian companies.
Russell Perry, marketing director for Emerson Network Power in Asia, says there are two key takeaways from the latest survey that will interest data centre professionals in the region.
“Number one is the reversal of the negative sentiment, which is typically a precursor to increased spending and the commissioning of new projects,” says Perry. “We’ll be interested in seeing at what rate this sentiment converts into an improved project pipeline.
“The second is the switch from availability to energy efficiency as the top priority for new and existing data centre projects. This shows a clear connection between energy efficiency and cost reduction, which is consistent with the increased focus on OPEX [operating expense] as a result of the recession. It also shows that energy efficiency is now widely associated with lower cost, and less so with corporate governance or ‘green’ initiatives from past years.”
