Telekom Malaysia’s IT services arm VADS’ Mahmoud Dasser (pic above), the VP for Partnership and Marketing, includes comment on Vision 2020 in his take on CxO customer sentiment for year ahead (for the full commentary and data, see the interview – CxO Pulse Check: Cloud changes in Malaysia 2017).
“Through our engagement with customers, especially the C-Levels, we find that a majority of them have common interests and priorities to drive their digital transformation journey.
They place great emphasis on customer experience, business agility and extended ecosystem of partnerships. They believe this allows them to have a direct and significant impact on customers’ relationship on its various touch points.
Hence we notice that majority of CXOs place laser focus attention on:
1) Cost savings and efficiency
2) Business agility and speed to market
3) New innovation to digital business
4) Compliance of regulations
These priorities are in tandem with the digitalisation wave and customers experience trend; in which to many are aspirations.
In this regard, Cloud Services are perceived as a key enabler and accelerator for this digital transformation. Consequently, this is well supported by research studies from firms like IDC that predicts the adoption of Private Cloud and Hosted Private Cloud are expected to grow at 40.7 percent; compared to a moderate rate of 15.3 percent for Public Cloud. This is in reference to the CAGR of 2014-2019.
In addition, cloud adoption indeed varies by industries and market segments. For example, industries with high regulations and governance like Financial Services, Public Education and Healthcare will require local data residency. Hence for these industries the only available options are Private Cloud or Hosted Private Cloud. While the first option can meet their requirement, it is not cost effectiveness since they lack the economies of scale and the availability of required skills that Hosted Private Cloud can offer.
The adoption of cloud technology will definitely accelerate as these industries are set to sail more aggressively on digital transformation journey to enhance their portfolio of products, business processes and customer experience.
On the other extreme we find out that the “born in the Cloud” companies and digital disruptors industries such as the eCommerce, shared economy companies, Fintech business or low cost airlines industries are faster adaptors of the public cloud.
Some of them went extra miles by having a “Cloud Only” strategy, i.e. everything they do, consume and develop are on the public cloud.
This indeed gives such companies a massive advantage over the traditional or legacy companies in terms of business agility, cost efficiencies and scalability of the business.
The mushrooming eCommerce or shared economy business requires a local public marketplace where all apps are towered under one umbrella with one stop shop and local support.
This convenience; together with the Government’s Rancangan Malaysia Ke-11 initiative are the catalysts for SMEs to adopt ICT and Digital Economy in no time.”