Why Oracle is bullish about SEA’s cloud market in 2021 and beyond

07 Jan 2021 5 min read

Spurred by the desire for innovation and agility, SEA’s businesses are accelerating their journeys to the cloud
Singapore’s connectivity, skilled workforce and network of qualified partners have enabled Oracle to ride the region’s growth momentum
The tech giant is doubling down on SEA, with plans to launch a new cloud region in Singapore by 2021

From front to back office, the global pandemic has urged companies to accelerate cloud adoption. In Southeast Asia (SEA), cloud-based applications such as Zoom have permeated our lives. In the back office, enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure and platform services continue to grow despite the economic turbulence.

But SEA’s journey to the cloud began long before these disruptions. Spurred by the region’s growing appetite for innovation, enterprise technology company Oracle is bullish about its future in the region.

“It is a dynamic, populous market that thrives on innovation – with early adopters readily jumping onto the cloud. Each country has embarked on its unique digital journey – whether it is through smart nations or from specific industries such as shipping or retail,” said Cherian Varghese, Regional Managing Director, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) & SAGE (South Asian Growing Economies).

While businesses have varying levels of readiness to adopt cloud technology, digitalisation is top of mind

Southeast Asia – a dynamic market ripe for cloud growth

For Oracle, SEA’s healthy mix of global companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) presents a significant opportunity. “The established businesses such as telcos and banks are carrying out large-scale transformation projects, but the SMEs are equally aggressive in digitalising,” said Cherian.

Indeed, the region spots 70 million SMEs and 81% are looking to leverage digital technology. “Digitalisation has a deep impact on these companies and their customers. For them, their priorities are around modernising their security and data management so that they can become nimbler and give an outstanding experience to their end-customers,” said Cherian.

Size alone isn’t the only difference. The readiness to migrate to the cloud varies across businesses, with Oracle seeing two broad archetypes:

Cloud natives: Businesses, typically start-ups, that have leveraged cloud-based solutions since their inception
Transforming companies: Established business that are taking a phased approach to migrating their on-premise technology to the cloud

COVID-19 and the desire for agility has accelerated the journey to the cloud, with companies shifting away from the phased approach

However, pressure to become agile and leverage data for impactful decision-making has only hastened the journey to the cloud for the latter.

For example, to tap into real-time knowledge of its finance and operations to drive growth, precision manufacturer Beyonics undertook a comprehensive business transformation programme with Oracle to implement end to end enterprise resource planning and supply chain management solutions. This saw the manufacturer migrating almost all of its front and back office factory operations to Oracle Cloud, ultimately giving the company greater insight into business activities and streamlining workflows.

“The phased approach to digitalisation has gone out of the window and companies are running multiple transformation projects in parallel,” said Cherian. He elaborated that on the back of COVID-19, one of the key drivers of cloud growth is scalability – the ability to rapidly increase or reduce IT resources based on business needs. With remote working and fluctuating global demand becoming commonplace, software and infrastructure must be capable of ramping up and down at a moment’s notice and cloud service providers are in the sweet spot to give businesses such flexibility.

Singapore’s stability and connectivity makes it an ideal location for cloud companies to tap into SEA

Accessing the ASEAN cloud market from Singapore

Through its Asia Pacific headquarters in Singapore, Oracle is well positioned to ride on the growth of SEA’s cloud market. Since the company landed on Singapore’s shores over 30 years ago, the country’s rapid rise in digital literacy, economic stability and connectivity have enabled the tech giant to build a strong foundation to serve its customers in SEA. “Singapore is the gateway to ASEAN. It is an ideally located transit point, with connections to countries across the region. For our executives who are based here, this means being able to take a short flight to wherever business opportunities are – whenever they present themselves,” said Cherian.

While humble in size, Singapore has the most competitive workforce in APAC, allowing tech companies to enhance productivity

But for Oracle, Singapore is more than just a strategic location. The tech giant taps into the country’s workforce for key roles.

“Singapore’s workforce may be small, but it’s one of the most highly skilled in Asia. The country is also proactive in ensuring that the local workforce is up-to-date with skills needed in various job functions,” said Chua Horng Shya, Managing Director, Singapore. Horng Shya added that national initiatives such as Smart Nation have allowed multinational corporations to access current technologies and hire digitally skilled local employees, all of which have enhanced company productivity. Combined with the attractiveness of Singapore to global talent, the country has risen to 1st in Asia Pacific under the 2020 INSEAD Global Talent Competitiveness Index.

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By tapping into tech partners in the ecosystem, Oracle is able to expand its reach and deliver tailored customer experiences

In fact, Oracle has established several initiatives to bolster the talent pool here. The organisation runs its Oracle Academy programme in Singapore and has partnered with local institutions such as Nanyang Polytechnic and the Institute of Technical Education to impart digital skills to the next generation of tech leaders.

Singapore’s network of tech companies is also an attractive point for Oracle. With 80 out of 100 of the world’s top tech companies based here, the cloud service provider has been able to establish a robust partner network to facilitate delivery and management of its services. The company taps into both international and local partners to efficiently fulfil service level agreements, manage performance of services and ultimately deliver a tailored customer experience.

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Oracle is doubling down on the region, with plans to launch a data centre in Singapore to serve customers across SEA

Taking the ASEAN region to the cloud

Looking ahead, Oracle is embarking on a global initiative to build 38 cloud regions by 2021. As part of this, it will launch a new data centre in Singapore this year to serve not just the local market, but also customers across SEA.

“Singapore has a very transparent regulatory framework, and closely collaborates with the private sector in the development of new regulations and policies,” said Horng Shya. “This open and transparent approach has positioned Singapore as a digital hub for the region in the same way it has over the years for physical goods and services, and that’s why it is a natural fit for hosting our cloud services.”