IDC - IT service providers key to unleashing agility

IDC Asia/Pacific's latest study suggests that managed services are the key for APAC organisations looking to take the next step toward digital maturity.

The IDC MaturityScape Benchmark: Cloud in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), 2018 report shows that more than 85% of the APAC organisations are still in the early stages of maturity, which in IDCMaturityScape's model are referred to as ad hoc and opportunistic stages.

Compared to the previous Cloud MaturityScape benchmark study in 2016, over 20% of organisations have progressed from stage one (ad hoc) to two (opportunistic).

Fewer organisations have crossed over from stage two to three (repeatable), which is reflective of the difficulty in crossing the chasm between these two stages.

Progressing to stage three requires significant investments in technology, tools, processes and skills - all of which take time and budget.

Internal competencies and skills to support these activities are also relatively low in the region, with most of the skilled resources concentrated in large multi-national enterprises and IT service providers.

This means that organisations that leverage externally sourced services like those through managed services providers are the ones who are able to cross this maturity chasm.

IDC believes that the technology gaps between 'Thrivers' and 'Survivors' organisations are narrowing because of the maturing technology which results in the standardisation of cloud services and their ease of adoption.

But to progress to more advanced stages in the maturity curve, organisations must adopt a more strategic view of cloud as an enabling technology for business transformation and innovation.

Cost of cloud adoption is rarely justified in the early stage of maturity as the adoption is primarily driven-based on required functionalities from the business.

"Speed and agility have become the key drivers for cloud adoption," says IDC Asia/Pacific cloud services research director William Lee.

"More organizations in Asia Pacific are adopting a cloud-first strategy such that cloud infrastructure has now become a preferred option for IT modernisation. Organisations need more consistent, standardised, and available automated cloud resources to enable developers and LOB teams to execute at speed and cost.

"Workload portability and application delivery across multiple clouds will be key to build a robust cloud services delivery platform for agility."