TechTouch Asia

by Gibu Mathew, VP and GM APAC, Zoho Corp Source: Zoho. Mathew. When data abuse is discussed, people immediately think of data breaches or data leaks. While data privacy and data security are interrelated, the two are not the same. Data breaches are easier to identify, and during the pandemic, Interpol* found a surge in cybercrime and data theft throughout the Southeast Asia region. It is no surprise that findings from IDC note that Asia Pacific spending on security-related products has been increasing year after year, and would reach US$39 B by 2025. Improving data security is always a good idea, but is merely scratching the surface of data privacy abuse, as the same tools to fight hacks cannot be applied for data privacy. Fortunately, data privacy has gained greater attention recently with regulators and technology companies pushing the privacy agenda for end consumers. However, this is still insufficient. Data privacy adoption has been at differing rates in Southeast Asia, where so...

UiPath , an enterprise automation software company, has found that 69% of workers in Singapore believed that automation can address burnout and improve job fulfillment, higher than the global average (58%) and third-highest of all countries surveyed* globally. In the Asia-Pacific region, the numbers range from Japan at 36%, and India at 86%. Nearly three quarters (73%) of workers in Singapore also reported that they view employers that use business automation to help support employees and modernise operations more favourably than those that do not. Employees are being asked to do more work with less support, with 47% of all Singapore respondents saying they’ve been asked to take on more tasks at work in the past six months because of layoffs or hiring freezes (globally, 28%; Australia 32%; India 53%, and Japan, 5%). As work piles up, it takes a toll on employees — about one in four workers (26%) in Singapore report feelings of burnout — more staffers are leaning on AI tools to provide...