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WATCH: HP’s Tian Chong NG Says Appetite To Adopt New Tech Is Bigger In Asia-Pacific Than In The U.S.

Asia is at the center of many exciting technology developments, says HP’s Tian Chong NG, president of the Asia-Pacific region. Chong discussed the advancements in an interview with CRNtv at HP Reinvent 2019, an annual partner conference that was held in Houston.

How is digital transformation progressing in the Asia-Pacific market?

In a nutshell, what I see in Asia is that with digital transformation, working with our customers and partners, we are trying to use digital technologies to make life simple and to leapfrog all this complex environment in order to solve things faster. Thereby, we become more efficient, so that our customers can then free up their time to do better things in life.

How is this different from the U.S.?

On the surface, it would seem that in a big market like U.S., which is more developed, you would think that transformations are happening at a faster pace, but it’s pretty ironic because what I see in Asia is that there are emerging markets adopting these digital technologies. For example, if you look at China and if you look at cashless payment or mobile payment, it’s being adopted so widely now that even when I travel myself, personally I travel to a Tier 3 or Tier 4 city, and when I buy from a vendor on the street they don’t accept cash. I can only pay in digital payment. It’s amazing. The joke is that even when the beggars ask if you want to donate, they ask you to take out your digital wallet. You can’t take coins or cash. So, it’s really progressed tremendously.

Why would you say the U.S. has been slower in adopting these digital technologies?

The hunger to adopt and the appetite to adopt these technologies seems to be bigger in these emerging markets. And I think also the population, the demographics, in these markets a big chunk of the population are millennials coming to the workforce. Then obviously you have the Gen Ys and all that out there, but it’s a younger population base and I think the attitude, hunger and willingness to change is much more apparent in that part of the world. And so, for HP as I watch those megatrends, we are trying to leverage this to grow our business. So, it’s pretty amazing. It’s not just participating and enjoying it for other things, but we are trying to see how we can cap on it even for our business. That’s just one small example.