Global Technology Services company, NTT Ltd. has highlighted the critical need for business agility and the role of hybrid cloud in its 2021 Hybrid Cloud Report.
The report conducted with 950 decision-makers in 13 countries across five regions – including Singapore, Hong Kong, India in Asia Pacific (APAC) highlighted the increasing reliance on technology and found that the cloud has become a business lifeline.
It is recorded that 90 percent of APAC businesses agree that pandemic has forced operations to rely on technology more than ever before.
Hybrid cloud is now seen as critical to data-driven processes and real-time decisions both now and in the future. The study found that a further 31.6 percent of APAC respondents plan to implement a hybrid solution within 12-24 months. With 60.3 percent of APAC organisations globally already using, or piloting hybrid cloud, the benefits of hybrid cloud are already clear.
During an uncertain time, businesses are continuing to tighten their purse strings and look to hybrid. The report also implied when hybrid cloud being implemented correctly, it can drive efficiency in term of cost and overall performance.
The report found that an improved speed of deployment of apps and services is the biggest driver (38.8 percent) of hybrid cloud adoption in APAC, especially given the shift to a distributed workforce model where businesses in this region now need to access data and applications in new, different and often complex ways.
According to APAC respondents, the second largest motivation for hybrid cloud adoption is an overall improvement of business agility (38.3 percent, followed by a more efficient total cost of IT operations (34.0 percent).
After working with NTT to implement a hybrid IT infrastructure, Christophe Le Caignec, Head of IT Operations, at Lefebvre Sarrut Services, said, “Our infrastructure now lets us focus our time and resources on application development and lifecycle management, helping us to bring new services to market much more quickly.”
Businesses, however, need to implement a hybrid cloud in a way that will optimise environments to maximise efficiencies. Taking that into account, over half of the organisations (53.6 percent) strongly agree on the need to engage with experts, such as managed cloud providers.
Beyond maximising cost efficiencies, businesses are also charged with changing attitudes to security and compliance and the complexities of implementing hybrid cloud. The report found that more than half of the respondents in APAC (51.2 percent) claim that the difficulties in managing data security is the greatest barrier to adopting hybrid cloud.
To overcome these barriers when working in such complex environments, organisations must choose the right environment that will securely host their mission- critical applications across public and private clouds; and work with a partner who understands the industries they are working with to ensure compliance.
Additionally, the report found that network performance and a shortage of skills were also regarded as sizeable barriers to hybrid cloud adoption. Both, if not appropriately addressed, when implementing the cloud, could undo the benefits it offers.
Rob Lopez, Executive Vice President, Intelligent Infrastructure at NTT Ltd., comments, “As businesses look to navigate the new year, they must look to hybrid cloud environments that are optimised for agility, security and supported by the right network architecture while also meeting compliance requirements. This is the foundation upon which cloud is successful and will enable businesses to weather any form of disruption that comes their way.”
Lastly, the report suggests that partnering is key for success. Industry collaboration and working with external experts will provide businesses with the right knowledge and skills to set up their hybrid cloud environments for agility.
When APAC respondents were asked about the types of partner used, 70.8 percent of businesses said they engaged with systems integrators, while 55.4 percent engaged with specialist information security consultants or managed security service providers (MSSPs), highlighting the importance of security to cloud deployments.
