Tricia Ang | 18 November 2021
The impact of the COVID-19 crisis has affected many companies globally and sped up the adoption of IT immensely, with 89% of APAC enterprises accelerating the migration of data and apps to Cloud. 55% of C-Level executives also viewed IT as more strategic since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Josep Garcia VP & GM, Asian Growth and Emerging Markets (GEMs), Red Hat, shares business updates and regional trends and outlook on Digital Transformation while Guna Chellapan, General Manager Singapore, Red Hat, shares how Hybrid Cloud is driving growth, at their Red Hat Forum ASEAN event.
With the theme “Open Your Perspective”, the 11th iteration of this annual event seeks to provide opportunities for participants and attendees to collaborate via their shared experiences, innovations, and insights. By fostering deeper collaboration, Red Hat Forum Asia Pacific aims to broaden perspectives on how an open hybrid cloud can help enterprises discover new solutions and tools to innovate, create new business models and chart a path for a digital future.
Top three barriers
Almost half (46%) of companies are making the transition from paper to digital, with majority (98%) planning to begin, or have begun their digital transformation journey.
Technology is not the biggest barrier to digital transformation, instead, it is Culture. Culture is the most frequently cited barrier (55%), companies whose culture deeply ingrains traditional strategies are more reluctant to dive in and start digitalizing. Process and technology are the other two top-cited barriers to digital transformation.
Growth Momentum in GEMs
Garcia highlighted that automation adoption is in the Asia region is growing rapidly, increasing efficiency as part of digital transformation efforts. Container momentum is also building up, with applications such as Google Cloud and Alibaba Cloud gaining significant traction. The adoption rate of container architecture is high in sectors such as Financial Services, Telcos, and Public Services, due to fast innovation on digital channels and application modernization. More companies are investing in better citizen services due to being in the exit phase of the pandemic. Growing demand for multi-cloud also drives the demand for multi-cloud solutions.
Wave of Digital Transformation
With the COVID-19 pandemic, everything has gone digital. Chellapan highlighted that the digital transformation is especially prominent in the banking industry, where technology is initiating a new wave of disruption, forcing banks to operate with speed.
Open banking is transforming how financial institutions think about tech and security. Chellapan shared that, today, everything is mobile, with over 89% of consumers using mobile banking regularly, and there has been an accelerated rollout of digital banking capabilities in several regions.
The shift from Public Cloud, to Hybrid Cloud
There is high demand for hybrid cloud, with 63% of companies already having a hybrid cloud infrastructure today, while 54% plan to implement the infrastructure within the next 2 years. Hybrid cloud infrastructure delivers innovation with speed, has the flexibility to adapt, and enables new customer experiences.
Public cloud is already widely utilized by companies globally, and with private cloud becoming more accessible, more companies are implementing it into their infrastructure.
So where does Hybrid Cloud stand in this? Hybrid cloud is the combination of public and private clouds working together and provides a good balance between utility and price. In bare metal, virtual, private, and public cloud environments, a hybrid cloud provides a universal platform across all of them. This enables a collection of abilities that are critical in today’s society, which includes speed, agility, and mobility.
Red Hat’s Hybrid cloud enables companies to, scale up or down without rebuilding apps, get more value from their IT investments, and enhance their company’s stability and security.
Speakers
Josep Garcia
Vice President and General Manager, Asian Growth & Emerging Markets (GEMs), Red Hat Singapore
Josep is the Vice President and General Manager, Asian Growth & Emerging Markets (GEMs) at Red Hat. In this current role, he is responsible for the overall business management of Southeast Asia and Korea region.
Before taking this position, Josep was the Vice President of Partners & Alliances for the Asia Pacific region at Red Hat. During his tenure, the team built a first-class partner ecosystem that has helped position Red Hat as a leader in the open source IT infrastructure market across all industries and segments.
Gunasekharan Chellappan
Country Manager, Red Hat Singapore
Guna has been in the IT software industry for over 25 years in various leadership roles. Currently, he is the country manager for Singapore at Red Hat, where he leads sales and business development activities in the country.
Over the years, Guna has been extensively involved in the implementation of complex analytics solutions such as supply chain, customer experience and risk management across the world in various industries ranging from financial services, government, manufacturing and retail.
Red Hat
Red Hat is the world’s leading provider of enterprise open source solutions, utilizing a community-powered approach to deliver high-performing Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat supports companies to standardize across environments, develop cloud-native applications, and integrate, automate, secure, and manage complex environments with award-winning support, training, and consulting services.
