Why APAC needs invisible IT to keep pace with its digital growth

By Rakshit Ghura, VP and General Manager of Digital Workplace Solutions, Lenovo

Asia-Pacific is advancing its digital workplaces faster than any other region, and that pace now brings new pressures for IT leaders. The region already leads global digital workplace maturity at 66.35% compared with the global average of 62.3%, and continued investment is set to grow at an 11% CAGR through 2030.

As organisations expand across markets and add more tools and platforms, support complexity rises and responsiveness declines. Invisible IT is emerging as a practical way for CIOs to reduce friction and deliver more consistent digital experiences across the region. At its simplest, Invisible IT prevents many faults in the first place, reducing the need for users to raise tickets or wait for help.

Fragmentation is limiting Asia-Pacific productivity

Asia-Pacific enterprises operate across diverse markets, time zones, and regulatory environments, which makes their digital estates unusually large and difficult to manage. Rapid digitalisation has driven the adoption of new platforms and cloud services, but the speed of expansion has outpaced the ability to standardise how these environments function day-to-day. 

Research from MuleSoft shows that organisations now work with an average of 897 applications, whilst Salesforce reports that only 28% are integrated. This limits visibility across regions and creates variations in how systems behave from one market to another.

Across APAC teams, employees rely on multiple devices and different channels to resolve interruptions. These parallel pathways slow response times and make it harder for IT teams to maintain consistency across borders. Fragmentation becomes a direct drag on productivity when underlying problems take longer to identify and when processes vary between countries. As the region grows more interconnected, these gaps become increasingly difficult to manage.

Why traditional IT support models are outdated

Many APAC organisations still rely on support frameworks built for fixed office environments, even though work now happens across cities, regions, and time zones. These older models depend on users reporting problems and waiting for the next step in a queue, which is slow in workplaces that rely on a broader mix of devices, networks, and applications.

The limits of this approach are made clear in Lenovo’s research, with 19% of organisations detecting issues manually, 65% detecting issues only after they occur, and only 16% saying they identify problems proactively.

Resolution follows the same pattern, with 21% fixing issues manually, 55% resolving them automatically after they happen, and only 24% resolving them in advance. This sequence means IT teams often learn about an interruption only after employees have already been affected.

Another constraint is the reliance on broad user categories. Only 27% of organisations offer hyper-personalised support based on real behaviour, which leaves many employees with troubleshooting paths that do not match how they actually work. Combined with rising ticket volumes and higher operational costs, these weaknesses show why reactive workflows no longer fit the speed or complexity of APAC’s digital workplaces.

What invisible IT looks like

Invisible IT combines predictive intelligence, adaptive assistance, and redesigned responsibilities for IT teams to create more reliable digital experiences for employees in every market.

AI monitors device performance, system health and usage trends across countries to identify early signs of disruption. When a pattern suggests an upcoming problem, automated fixes or pre-emptive engineer dispatch can prevent downtime. AI agents can also interpret error messages and create fully routed tickets automatically.

Lenovo’s pilot results show the impact of this shift, with 40% of issues resolved before a ticket is created, support costs reduced by 30% and onboarding times improved by 50%.

APAC’s range of languages, roles and workstyles means traditional role-based support often misses the mark. AI-driven personas use real behaviour data to adjust assistance levels to how people work in specific markets. This creates consistency even when teams operate under different conditions.

Invisible IT helps teams move away from constant firefighting. Only 12% of leaders expect support headcount to fall. Instead, teams gain time to drive long-term improvements in digital performance, standardisation, and regional alignment.

What Asian businesses can do next

Lenovo’s research shows that fragmented systems remain the biggest barrier, cited by 51% of leaders. For regional enterprises, these silos make it difficult to maintain consistent support practices across markets and limit the ability to scale improvements quickly.

Bringing device, application and service data together from different countries helps AI recognise regional patterns more accurately. A shared foundation also allows teams to compare signals across markets and identify where inconsistencies originate.

Roles in APAC IT functions are shifting toward automation oversight and digital experience management. Teams need the skills to use AI-generated insights in settings where connectivity, languages, and regulatory expectations vary. These capabilities shorten the time needed to help achieve more stable service levels across countries.

Adoption levels differ widely across the region, driven by uneven skills and maturity. Experienced partners can help standardise predictive and personalised support across diverse environments, ensuring that improvements made in one market can be replicated quickly in others.

Practical actions to apply now include choosing one market as a proving ground for predictive support and refining the model before expanding across the region; standardising root-cause categories so AI can compare incident patterns more effectively across countries; introducing lightweight behavioural personas, including mobile-heavy users, frontline staff and power users, to guide early personalisation; and reviewing cross-border ticket handoffs and removing one step to improve regional consistency.

Creating the foundations for seamless digital work

Invisible IT offers a way for Asia-Pacific enterprises to provide employees with greater consistency, even as digital environments grow more complex. By shifting from reaction to anticipation, it helps organisations reduce disruption and maintain stable performance across markets with very different needs. IT teams gain room to focus on improving digital workflows rather than responding to a continuous stream of incidents.

This approach creates a more dependable foundation for regional growth. The businesses that invest in unified data, new skills and modern support models will be in a stronger position to deliver the seamless experiences employees expect.

To explore the full findings and recommendations, read Lenovo’s Work Reborn report. https://s7d1.scene7.com/is/content/Lenovoassetsprod/lenovo_DWS_Work_Reborn_Report_4_ww_enpdf?refId=54bcd94f-4a6a-47d8-aa54-f5d8f1ffd60a