Revealed: top five ASEAN enterprise IT priorities for 2021

Enterprises across ASEAN are reconsidering their ICT priorities in 2020 to address the impact of COVID-19. Against this backdrop, GlobalData has revealed its top five predictions for cloud, networking, mobility, communications and security, based on their market potential and impact in ASEAN.

A report by GlobalData has forecast the five top trends for each technology domain in 2021; public cloud will lead the adoption of cloud technologies, while SD-WAN will be a common networking service for organisations. Regarding mobility, enterprise 5G solutions will move from development to the pre-commercial stage, and more domestic players will enter the CPaaS market in the communications domain. Managed security services will also be the best option for businesses to keep up with the technology in the security domain.

Alfie Amir, Principal Analyst at GlobalData, said that with critical services such as cloud, networking, unified communications (UC) and security in place, ASEAN enterprises will have a stronger foundation, which will allow them to accelerate their digital transformation.

Enterprises are expanding their public cloud deployment to support remote employees. Global cloud providers are also expanding their presence in the ASEAN region to extend their domestic market reach. With cloud adoption still low, GlobalData predicts it will grow by 8.7% year on year (YoY) in 2021.

For networking, SD-WAN is forecast to become a standard service, serving as an efficient solution for enterprises to address the rising complexity of managing workloads across network and cloud domains. The overall networking market in ASEAN in forecast to grow at 6.5% YoY in 2021.

The ongoing development of 5G ecosystems will see service providers and enterprises accelerating their initiatives to soft launch 5G applications. Telcos will also begin to merge their 5G and IoT initiatives; as a result, the mobility market is expected to increase by 6.7% in 2021.

ASEAN telcos will also enter the CPaaS market and develop the capabilities to enable businesses to interact with customers through various channels in 2021.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is driving the need to have efficient customer engagement across different platforms as well as integration with existing business applications. With voice, UC and contact centre solutions being offered by most telcos, adding CPaaS is a logical step to further unlock their communications capabilities,” said Amir.

Managed security services will be the preferred way for enterprises to keep up with the rapid advancements in the technology. While the managed security service market only accounts for 30% of the total security market, it is expected to increase by 3.4% in 2021.

“Entering 2021, ASEAN enterprises are ready to deploy new solutions to strengthen their business continuity planning (BCP). This is pushing service providers to be more proactive in offering new solutions and enhancing their portfolio to address the changing demands,” said Amir.

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