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How the World Is Moving to the Cloud and Why We Should Follow

Jack Kim

发布日期: 2021年6月16日

Since 2010, global cloud computing industry has grown tremendously year over year to reach USD 370 B in 2020, with an exceptional growth of 380 percent over a short span of 10 years. Back in 2019, businesses were already more data driven than ever. Companies were already deploying cloud and other digital technologies to gain efficiency in operations. Data was in any way growing exponentially, and global companies were looking for cost-effective yet secure ways to store, manage, retrieve, and analyze this data to gain competitive advantage.

Come 2021, we have entered the era of hyper-digitalization, where use of cloud and digital technologies is not just limited to operational efficiency but upgrading the overall business models of organizations to address the turmoil created in business operations by the pandemic. Cloud adoption in enterprise has increased by 50% with the onset of COVID. As most cloud computing services are self-service and on demand, companies were able to provision computing resources in minutes, typically with just a few mouse clicks, giving businesses a lot of flexibility and agility. Cloud also made business operations resilient with data backup, disaster recovery, and business continuity easier and less expensive because data can be mirrored at multiple redundant sites on the cloud provider’s network in a secure way. Be it customer interactions and purchases moving to online channels or the employees working remotely becoming the new normal, cloud is the way forward in the post pandemic era. As per a recent Gartner report, organizations that increased funding of digital innovation are 2.7 times more likely to be a top performer than a trailing one.

“As per a recent Gartner report, organizations that increased funding of digital innovation are 2.7 times more likely to be a top performer than a trailing one”

With 92% of companies already being in cloud in some way most of the world has already experienced and validated the outright benefits of cloud such as operational cost reduction, flexible on demand scalability. South Korea’s public cloud market has robust growth potential in APAC. With 15% CAGR, the market is expected to double in size from US$1.5 billion (2018) to US$3 billion (2023). Businesses are realizing that use of technology is a must to provide customer experiences that keeps people coming back, using tools like cloud computing, data analytics, AI in a much better way to build deep customer relationships. Some of the sectors that are adopting fast to such technologies and leading the way are eCommerce, hi-tech, with the South Korean government also pushing for what we call the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Rise of e-commerce in South Korea:

South Korea has a fast growing e-commerce market and is predicted to reach USD 325 B in 2025, with a CAGR of 19.92%, over the period 2021-2025. Key factors fueling the growth of the market are increase in internet users, urbanization, increase in online advertising and smartphone penetration. With mobile payments also having an accelerated growth. Outbreak of COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of e-commerce as a result of rapid shift from physical distribution channels towards online channels and stores to fueling the overall market growth.

With the increase in market opportunity, there is an increase in competition too, and driving customer experience with rapid adoption of advanced technologies has become key for the success of e-commerce companies. From automated product recommendations, chatbot support, personalized emails to tailor made self-service portals, have become the norm

The right digital technology and partner can immensely help e-commerce companies with the right tools and capabilities to help optimize uptime, analyze customers data, workflow automations and customization options that will help them drive personalized experiences for each and every user.

Disruption in Banking:

Banking has changed and transforming in South Korea, and banks have utilized high internet and smartphone adoption rates in the country to their advantage to drive a digital revolution in the sector. Traditional banks in the country are facing challenge, as digital-native and internet-only rivals are muscling in, while consumer preferences have changed as digital habits evolving fast. With time being of essence, Banks quickly need to modernize their outdated core systems, focus on driving superior CX through digital banking and focus on hyper personalization to drive sales of banking and insurance products though data analytics. Traditional Korean banks need to get on the transformation journey fast as their non-banking and fintech competitors are closing in fast with a regulatory sandbox launched in Q2 2019 waives regulations in offering new services.

Huge Push for the Fourth Industrial Revolution by South Korean Government:

In addition to the significant investment made by the South Korean government to support cloud computing services, the government is also planning to invest billions into advanced technologies such as AI/ML, IOT, 5G and big data / analytics. In the beginning of this year, the government announced that it would be spending USD 3.9 B on driving innovative technologies to boost R&D. While another USD 2.1 B would be diverted on semiconductors, bio-health and “future car technology”. As the pandemic hit, President Moon Jae-in was re-elected and the government committed to spending US$62 billion on technological innovation to reshape the post-pandemic South Korean economy. Also, as per a separate announcement, by 2022, the country hopes to create one of the first hyper-connected cities by creating an enterprise-grade city-wide advanced IOT network.

Cybersecurity becomes critical in the “remote everything” era:

Recent trends and cybersecurity statistics reveal a huge increase in hacking and data breach incidents from common sources such as, mobile, employee computers and IoT devices. COVID-19 has made remote work and remote business models an imperative, making inroads for cyberattacks. However, cloud provides superior ways for protection including broad set of policies, technologies, and controls that strengthen overall security posture of an organization while frequent patches for security vulnerability keeps security systems secured to the latest threats. The key framework going forward would be "Zero Trust" or an integrated approach to securing access with adaptive controls and continuous verification across the entire digital estate of any organization as we balance security with usability.

Organizations now need to evolve to an operating model that is agile, virtual, fast yet empowered. In the past 12 months, as organizations react to the turbulence, they have also realized the previously unimagined gains in productivity and speed. Cloud and other digital technologies such as AI, ML, Analytics are the building blocks for this transformation. It’s essential for organizations to look beyond the benefits of cost reduction enabled by immediate reduction of capital expenditure to cost optimization over the lifecycle of value creation, from creation of superior customer experience to maximizing operational efficiency through app and data modernization mindset using cloud economics of pay per use model with the speed and flexibility to ramp up at scale in minutes. Companies now need to work their long and short term strategy on a mix of public, private or hybrid cloud models.

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