Kyndryl, the world’s largest Information Technology (IT) infrastructure services provider, sees the Philippines as a "maturing market" in ASEAN with plenty of room for growth in terms of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data.

So far, "Only around 10 percent of firms in the Philippines have really developed a strategy about data and AI," Xerxes Cooper, President Strategic Markets of Kyndryl told the Manila Bulletin.

"Data and AI are the areas where we see a lot of substantive growth in the Philippines," he maintained.

Kyndryl's most recent survey of 500 top executives across the ASEAN (with 100 from the Philippines) revealed 48 percent of organizations in the country already have Data & AI strategy as a key priority.

Even then, half of these companies find it a challenge to secure budgets for Data & AI because they are unable to show business value and 48 percent are challenged by data integration issues.

While 72 percent of local organizations claim they have a data strategy that focuses on seamless access of real-time data across the organization, 54 percent are still focused on building a central data repository despite the emergence of data fabrics.

Nevertheless, “Data and AI initiatives across organizations in the Philippines are surging as they seek to drive growth, transformation and sustainability agendas," according to Wilson Go, Managing Director, Kyndryl Philippines.

Local business leaders believe Data and AI can enable them to be agile enough for today’s highly competotive and volatile market.

"We can help them, starting with consulting to execution and management of their data landscape,” he added.

A lot of discussions with local companies now focus on data strategy, Cooper maintained.

"It's about understanding more of what’s happening in the distributed plants and operations so they can drive more security for their employees, enhancing the client experience as well as the employee experience," he elaborated.

However, data and AI management go hand-in-hand.

"If you don’t take care of the data, no matter how powerful your AI engine is it will just crank out," Go warned.

For that reason, "We focus on is the end-to-end to make sure their investment doesn’t go to waste. We look at the data and help the customer clean the data. We put together data governance and centers of competency and help the clients scale."

"A lot of the clients are still looking at central repositories and very few still have a very comprehensive set of strategies," he noted.

Kyndryl, an $18 billion business operating in 60 different countries,has been in the Philippines for over two decades with a broad base of clientele, from financial services, telco, government, industrial, pharmaceuticals, and retail.

Its Philippine operations mirror the global one, says Go. "We help clients accelerate their digital reinvention and transform their organization."