According to a report by IDC, the global public cloud services market surpassed US$500bn in 2022. In Southeast Asia, the public cloud is expected to grow and reach a value of US$11bn by 2025 at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 21.5%. Vietnam is currently experiencing the highest growth at 32% followed by Indonesia and the Philippines at 31% each. Thailand (26%), Malaysia (25%), and Singapore (22%) complete the public cloud market growth in the region.

Across Southeast Asia, there is double-digit growth in cloud adoption, and yet many businesses are still challenged in their cloud journey. Most have yet to develop a clear cloud strategy that aligns with their overall business goals. They also lack the skills needed to fully utilize the cloud’s capabilities.

Changing business strategies may often overlook the cloud as there is a lack of understanding and appreciation of the technology and available solutions. Addressing this could be a game-changer, especially in making decision-makers understand and leverage technology better.

Creating opportunities and closing the gaps

eCloudvalley (ECV) is an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Tier Services Partner, with over 650 employees and a strong geographic presence in Southeast Asia, with local offices in the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Having been in the public cloud services business for the last ten years, ECV has modelled its own cloud transformation flywheel with education, adoption, and modernization, as pillars for growth, innovation, and change.

With the right education and training, businesses can better leverage how the cloud can help optimize processes, reduce costs, deliver better customer experiences, and attain a competitive advantage. However, the road to transformation does not stop here; companies must learn to leverage technology, modernize, and continuously upskill to achieve true business outcomes.

This is where ECV comes in. With offices in six countries in the region, ECV has a distinct advantage compared to other service providers. Having local teams in each country allows more effective communication and a better understanding of cultural nuances to create solutions that align with the unique needs of each market.

According to Jonathan T. Que, Regional Director of eCloudvalley, “Localization is key for every country specifically when it comes to culture and language. Embracing the local culture demonstrates respect and allows one to earn deeper trust with customers. Moreover, customers prefer to do business with someone who can speak their language and have a better grasp of the local market.”

Additionally, Que believes that education and understanding the cloud remains a key challenge most businesses face today. He hopes that if a business wants to do any type of cloud adoption, they need to make sure they are talking to the right people.

With offices in 6 countries in the region, ECV has a distinct advantage compared to other service providers. Having local teams in each country allows more effective communication and a better understanding of the unique needs of each market.

The customer as a partner

Apart from having a localized team to work with customers, Que also highlighted that part of ECV’s methodology is to look at each customer as a partner with the end goal of getting the customer to see you as an extension of their organization.

Across the overall cloud business, there are five areas that the majority of customers are focusing on in their cloud transformation journeys: cloud migration; data and analytics; cloud-native development; managed services; and security. It is essential to understand each business’s needs and educate them on a cloud-focused strategy.

“When we meet a customer, our goal is to understand who the customer is, the nature of their business, and what pain points they have. By doing this, we are better equipped to truly help them. While this sounds straightforward, a lot of companies don’t do this. To achieve a meaningful long-term relationship, we need to understand and care about the customer’s business. One of the most impactful affirmations we receive from our customers is that they don’t see ECV as a vendor, but as a partner. The relationship is elevated from a traditional customer-vendor relationship to where we become an extension of their company. That is a genuine partnership built for success.” said Que.

He also pointed out that the cloud journey is never one-size-fits-all as each customer has their own transformation journeys and challenges. In line with this, ECV has been able to learn from a decade’s worth of experience having completed over 150 successful migrations, over 200 successful data and analytics implementations, and over 100 managed services customers, to make the journey more efficient for our customers. In the words of Andy Jassy, former CEO of AWS and current CEO of Amazon, “there is no compression algorithm for experience.”

According to Jonathan T. Que, Regional Director of eCloudvalley, “We need to understand and care about the customer’s business. One of the most impactful affirmations we receive from our customers is that they don’t see ECV as a vendor, but as a partner.”

A wealth of customer success stories

ECV currently has over 1,000 customers in the region, across all industries and market segments, from large enterprises, SMEs, startups, and the public sector, spanning retail, financial services, telco, manufacturing, and hospitality – with each industry having its own unique challenges that ECV has the wealth of experience help with.

In the Philippines, Jollibee Foods Corporation, one of the largest restaurant companies in the world, partnered with ECV to manage their local IT cloud operations which includes migration, security, and data resiliency across 3,000 stores nationwide. This has given Jollibee over 30% total cost of ownership (TCO) savings and resulted in a significant increase in system uptime.

In Singapore, ECV worked with a large public sector healthcare service provider on database migration and DevOps on Kubernetes. The healthcare service provider was able to achieve over 15% TCO savings compared to its previous cloud provider. The company also saw its product roll-out time increase by 30% as well as a 40% efficiency gain in development efforts.

Meanwhile, in Malaysia, Zus Coffee – an SME with over 250 outlets nationwide – partnered with ECV for its data and modernization services. The company wanted to migrate from physical servers to serverless, and build a data lake to provide a single source of truth. ECV also built robust visualization dashboards to enhance data comprehension and facilitate data-driven decision-making. This not only resulted in significant cost reduction but also helped the chain gain a more profound understanding of its consolidated data.

Putting focus on the Financial Services Industry (FSI), ECV helped one of the largest banks in Thailand with its cloud security implementation. Given that the industry works with highly sensitive data and must comply with stringent regulations, ECV ensured that it was able to help the company operate in a well-architected and secure framework, enhancing the bank’s visibility and elevating compliance metrics by 90%.

To conclude with one last example, ECV partnered with Vietnam’s largest car manufacturer for a massive on-premise SAP migration, alongside a rigorous disaster recovery plan. This resulted in a 20% TCO savings compared to on-premises SAP but also a notable surge in system uptime exceeding 50%.

Looking to the future

In May 2023, ECV announced a multi-year Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with AWS. Under the SCA, combining AWS’s global training resources and ECV’s local cloud expertise, both parties aim to accelerate the delivery of cloud solutions to businesses across various market segments.

This milestone for ECV will allow them to drive more business growth with AWS by setting up an Innovation Lab, establishing their Cloud Centre of Excellence, adding more local support and resources, and expanding to new markets such as Australia.

The company also plans to train and upskill up to 1,000 more employees with ten more competencies. “Every individual within ECV, from the newest hire to the General Manager, is certified in the cloud. We believe this level of proficiency is pivotal in our ability to gain an in-depth understanding of our customers and effectively help them in addressing their distinct business needs,” said Que.

As it celebrates its ten-year anniversary this year, ECV stands strong as a dedicated and highly capable partner for businesses embarking on their digital transformation journey. The company is committed to refining its offerings, consistently adapting to customer and industry demands, and delivering targeted solutions and training for various sectors. With a proven track record, a dedicated team of experts, and a customer-focused mindset, ECV is poised to lead businesses into the next era of digital excellence.

Reach out to ECV in your region to elevate your digital journey, click here