Businesses in Hong Kong slow to adopt digital tech despite growing demand, finds HSBC survey
About three quarters of the companies surveyed recognise importance of digital tech, but only 28pc have plans to use it
Hong Kong businesses are slow to adopt company wide digitisation despite a growing demand and enthusiasm for digital technologies, especially mobile banking, according to a new study by HSBC.
About three quarters of the local companies surveyed recognised the benefits and importance of digitalisation, but only 28 per cent had plans to adopt digital technology. HSBC polled senior business executives from more than 300 Hong Kong companies for the survey.
This is the choice of the Hong Kong market – people don’t want to try new technologies before the legal compliance is in place
According to the survey, local companies’ slow take up of digital technology was down to a number of factors, including: a limited understanding of digital concepts such as big data, Open API and Internet of Things; companies’ long-standing aversion to taking risks; and Hong Kong’s weak innovation culture compared with mainland China, which is home to the largest global e-commerce market and a third of the world’s start-up unicorns.
“Hong Kong’s market strength is in compliance, security and data privacy, which in many aspects is the opposite of innovation. This is the choice of the Hong Kong market – people don’t want to try new technologies before the legal compliance is in place,” said Arthur Chan, chief executive of big data company SagaDigits.
“The innovation process in China is trial and error, whereas in Hong Kong it’s ‘wait and see’. Hong Kong companies want to stay in their comfort zone and are scared of being challenged. But in China and the US, people are trained to explore new things and take risks in business and education.”
