Companies that have moved to the cloud struggle to justify the ROIs. Source: Shutterstock

Does the APAC struggle with cloud migrations?

FIVE years ago, digital transformation projects were all about moving to the cloud. However, for Asian businesses, the transition hasn’t been all that successful.

According to analysts at IDC, more than 85 percent of APAC organizations are still in the early stages of maturity.

Compared to a previous benchmark study in 2016, over 20 percent of organizations have made some progress although they still struggle to leverage the cloud for replicable and scalable benefits.

In order to make progress, organizations need to make significant investments in technology, tools, processes, and skills – all of which take time and budget.

According to IDC, internal competencies and skills to support these activities are also relatively low in the APAC, with most of the skilled resources concentrated in large multi-national enterprises and IT service providers.

Therefore, organizations that leverage on externally sourced services like IT outsourcing and managed services are the ones who are able to cross this maturity chasm and make the most of their move to the cloud.

“This is also a key contributing factor to the maturity in cloud adoption seen in developed countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore,” said IDC.

Analysts also believe that the technology gaps between those that create competitive advantages through digital transformations and those that don’t are narrowing because of the maturing technology which results in the standardization of cloud services and their ease of adoption.

However, to progress to more advanced stages in the maturity curve, organizations must adopt a more strategic view of the cloud as an enabling technology for business transformation and innovation.

Faster time to value and agility is the new driver for cloud adoption. Cost of cloud adoption is rarely justified in the early stage of maturity as the adoption is primarily driven-based on required functionalities from the business.

“Speed and agility have become the key drivers for cloud adoption. More organizations in the APAC are adopting a cloud-first strategy such that cloud infrastructure has now become a preferred option for IT modernization,” said IDC Cloud Services Research Director William Lee.

“Organizations need more consistent, standardized, and available automated cloud resources to enable developers and LOB teams to execute at speed and cost. Workload portability and application delivery across multiple clouds will be key to build a robust cloud services delivery platform for agility,” added Lee.

The fact is, a lot of businesses in the APAC decided to move to the cloud, based on projected ROIs. Unfortunately, those are yet to be realized.

Although the transition might seem easy, the best way to make the most of it is to work with expert vendors and migration specialists who are better equipped to navigate the challenges your organization faces.