Cloud Enables APAC Businesses to Expand Worldwide: Report

Written by Nicole Henderson
May 30, 2016

Asia-Pacific businesses that use the cloud are more likely to have expanded to new geographic markets within the past five years and be internationalized.

Asia-Pacific businesses that use the cloud are more likely to have expanded to new geographic markets within the past five years and be internationalized, compared to non-cloud users, according to a new report commissioned by NetSuite and conducted by Frost & Sullivan.

According to the research released Monday, 70 percent of Asia-Pacific businesses that currently use the cloud are internationalized, compared to only 22 percent of non-cloud users. Forty-five percent of cloud users believe use of cloud solutions have enabled them to internationalize more quickly.

Lower operating costs, the ability to introduce new products and services faster, and enhanced productivity are all benefits of cloud computing, according to survey respondents.

Frost& Sullivan surveyed more than 800 senior executives across Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore.

“Our research has shown how industry change is not just continuing, but accelerating. Two new key factors that are driving this change have emerged from this study: significant increase in business costs and evolving customer needs,” Mark Dougan, Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand at Frost & Sullivan said in a statement. “These trends may create new challenges for organizations, but at the same time they also create significant opportunities for growth, with internationalization topping the list.”

Globalization is seen as an opportunity rather than a threat by 83 percent of organizations, according to the study, particularly in Singapore, New Zealand and the Philippines.

“Today’s enterprises need to be agile and flexible enough to continually adapt with the fast-changing business pace, but factors such as aging IT infrastructure remain as major hindrances, holding businesses back from capitalizing on growth opportunities abroad,” Zakir Ahmed, Vice President and General Manager, NetSuite Asia said in a statement. “NetSuite’s cloud-based business management software solutions can play a crucial role in helping businesses expand more easily and cost effectively, by giving them the agility, flexibility and speed to set up new business operations or transform business models.”

While a significant majority of small businesses in Hong Kong are internationalized (75 percent), the top three challenges to internationalization in Hong Kong are taxation issues, IT issues, and recruiting suitable employees.

Compliance issues can also be a challenge for businesses expanding to Asia from other countries, and was the push behind a recent partnership with Box and IBM.

In Singapore, 48 percent of executives said increasing business costs have a very significant impact on their industry. Seventy-three percent of executives in Singapore said that cloud is a significant advantage.