APAC firms flock to cloud

Organisations across the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly turning to cloud innovations as the foundation for their digitalization efforts, in a strategic move to become faster, leaner, and better at delivering results for their customers, according to a new study by Cisco and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The report highlights that overall cloud spending in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to reach $200 billion by 2024 according to Gartner, with investment into the cloud growing at a CAGR of over 20% since 2018. 

Singapore is among the top three markets in APAC with the largest overall IT spend across applications, platforms, infrastructure, and services. Across ASEAN, economies such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam are expected to lead the pack in terms of cloud spending growth at a CAGR of 25% by 2024.

“Looking ahead, cloud investments will continue to dominate boardroom conversations, with enterprises being the chief architects in their own cloud journey, and in shaping the future of cloud,” said Naveen Menon, Cisco president in ASEAN.

Prasanna Santhanam, BCG Managing director and partner in Singapore, said that as the focus shifts towards rebuilding better and emerging stronger in the next normal, cloud innovations will no doubt form an integral part of robust business continuity plans. 

The report identifies five archetypes of organisations based on their cloudification journey – namely, the Digital Native, Cloud Optimiser, Cloud Pragmatist, Cautious Adopter and Cloud Onlooker.

Digital Natives are organisations that were born in the cloud and built from the ground up on the cloud. Public cloud has always been the default choice for them, and through their cloud capabilities, they are able to respond swiftly to the dynamic business landscape with great agility.

Cloud Optimisers are firms that have mature cloud systems in place, and typically take a public cloud first approach.

Cloud Pragmatists are firms who use public cloud to a limited extent for non-business critical workloads, while private cloud is used as a strategic asset.

Cautious Adopters are firms whose leaders have yet to fully understand and embrace the benefits of cloud offerings, resulting in a lack of strategic direction to define a cloud vision.

Finally, Cloud Onlookers are firms that have no active plans to adopt cloud in their business model and strategy, but leaders could introduce isolated cloud solutions if they believe that to be beneficial to the organisation.

Based on these five archetypes, the report provides a working tool for business leaders to develop a better strategy to tailor their cloudification journey.