And it’s a wrap! We just closed two intense weeks shaped by our AI Forums in Singapore and Sydney. The events revealed both the extraordinary momentum behind enterprise AI and the scale of the reinvention still ahead. Across the two cities, we brought together close to 400 business and technology leaders. In the tech track, […]

APAC enterprises are scaling AI atop the cloud platforms they already rely on. Public cloud continues to expand in both use case breadth and business criticality, but enterprises increasingly face challenges around cost predictability, resilience, data control, and vendor concentration as environments become more hybrid and AI intensive. Fragmented regulation, geopolitical uncertainty, and uneven cloud maturity across markets are further driving divergent national strategies and operating models. This report explores how APAC enterprises are resetting their cloud strategies and operating models to deliver AI-driven value while managing rising cost, risk, and sovereignty pressures.

The capabilities that IT needs to provide services change as technology matures, transforming the relationship between IT and its customers. IT organizations are redefining their operating models and restructuring to support business requirements better. Technology teams can use business capability views to evaluate and redesign their IT organization. A business-model-aligned capability view for IT can help tech execs accelerate this effort and demonstrates how shifting business needs are mirrored in today’s business capabilities for IT.

Technology execs must continuously reassess their IT operating model, aligning it to deliver business outcomes. They can choose from a diverse set of operating unit structures, each supporting the unique context of the business and its stakeholders. Execs must develop a detailed understanding of which structural patterns best fit their organization’s overall operating model design and current maturity level. But they often confuse the language and differences between structures, such as shared services and centers of excellence, leading to misalignment. We define the most used operating unit patterns and their attributes and guide leaders on when to use them to improve their operating model decisions.

AI agents are reshaping how work gets done, blurring the line between human and machine capabilities. A cognitive operating model provides a framework for designing, governing, and orchestrating shared cognitive skills across people, AI agents, and hybrid teams to unlock more adaptive, scalable, and effective ways of working.

Designing, transforming, or optimizing your IT operating model, technology stack, or partner ecosystem can be intimidating due to the number of dependencies, interfaces, and moving parts. The concept of business capabilities gives technology executives the opportunity to simplify the problem and focus on what IT needs to enable or guide the business. This report uses Forrester’s existing research to guide tech execs through building a business capability framework that maximizes business value delivery.

A well-defined business capability catalog provides a clear, consistent, and comprehensive view of an organization’s capabilities. A standardized approach to documenting and managing capabilities gives technology leaders the information they need to facilitate meaningful discussions and ensure that investments and initiatives target the most critical areas of the business. This report outlines the essential components of a business capability catalog and the actionable steps that tech execs can take to build and maintain a catalog that drives organizational success.

Traditionally, IT operating models have been based on inside-out and bottom-up frameworks like ITIL; historic functions like application development; or technology towers like networks, servers, or storage. Such approaches respond badly to the fluctuating demands and priorities of today’s customer-obsessed enterprises. Modern leaders base their approach on value and business capabilities: what’s required for the IT organization to deliver IT services of value to customers. Forrester’s High-Performing IT Operating Model framework helps tech execs assess the importance, maturity, and complexity of capabilities to balance the need of delivering customer value with the need for operational excellence.

Securing investments to implement emerging technology isn’t easy; potential sponsors often perceive these as high-risk investments, putting both personal credibility and corporate capital on the line. Tech execs responsible for emerging technology research and innovation programs must gain the trust and confidence of business execs who have the needs and resources to sponsor specific opportunities. This report helps tech execs put themselves in a potential sponsor’s shoes and address their desires concerning risks, rewards, and concerns in business case materials and other communications when seeking funding.

Rising geopolitical tensions are pushing countries and enterprises toward sovereign cloud, AI, and infrastructure solutions. China and the US dominate the global technology market and achieve the highest levels of tech sovereignty, while Europe lags behind. Nations can only achieve tech sovereignty when they have the agency to develop and deploy models that use infrastructure, data, and talent independently of foreign governments’ decisions and influences. Over the next five years, sovereignty will improve only gradually, forcing midsize nations to manage gaps through alliances, partnerships, open technologies, and selective investments, rather than achieving full self-sufficiency.