A majority (94%) of Philippine businesses view cloud-based IT solutions as an important factor in mitigating the impact of the pandemic, according to a survey entitled “The Role of Cloud in Asia and Confidence in Asian Innovation”, commissioned by Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group.
With cloud technologies being seen as an enabler of digital transformations, 88% of Philippine businesses stated they are now more supportive of using cloud-based IT solutions to grow their businesses as compared to before COVID-19, among the highest of the markets surveyed.
“Businesses in the Philippines are embracing cloud technology because it has given them the flexibility to adjust quickly and easily during the pandemic. We anticipate that more businesses in the Philippines will adopt cloud services for their core businesses in the near future,” said Allen Guo, General Manager for the Philippines, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence.
Increasing cloud adoption
Given the impact of COVID-19 on business operations and working arrangements, an increasing number of Philippine enterprises are turning to cloud-based IT solutions to navigate the new conditions with more than half (51%) of businesses reporting they have adopted more cloud-based IT solutions. Close to 8 out of 10 (78%) ITDMs surveyed said they increased their working relationships with cloud vendors or consultants since the pandemic to develop solutions for remote working, building new apps or products, and managing workloads.
COVID-19 also increased demand for hybrid cloud solutions in the Philippines, with 74% of local businesses seeing the approach as key to their disaster recovery and business continuity efforts, as it captures the public cloud’s highly elastic, scalable and accessible benefits while simultaneously supporting the needs of private cloud users.
The survey found that nearly 70% of local enterprises agree that working with third-party IT vendors can help businesses react more quickly to COVID-19 compared to relying on an in-house team.
Confidence in Asian vendors
Given a greater understanding of the Asian mindset, 80% of ITDMs from the Philippines believe Asian vendors are able to offer better cloud solutions, the highest among the markets surveyed. The Philippines also showed the highest degree of confidence in cloud service providers among the markets surveyed, with 90% of respondents saying they believed cloud providers deliver on their promises.
Since the pandemic began, Philippine respondents have considered security credentials (62%), the ability to integrate with existing IT infrastructure (54%) and cost (48%) as the top three most important factors when deciding to partner with a cloud solutions provider. These factors were the same prior to COVID-19 as well.
As the leading public cloud service provider in Asia Pacific, Alibaba Cloud provides localized solutions and all of its major products – such as its elastic computing, storage, database, and network and security services – to empower the digital transformation of enterprises in the Philippines.
Further to this end, Alibaba Cloud has set a goal of supporting 5,000 local enterprises with their digital migrations by the end of 2023 as well as training 50,000 and certifying at least 10,000 IT professionals within the next three years.
“The Role of Cloud in Asia and Confidence in Asian Innovation Survey” polled over 1,000 IT decision-makers (ITDMs) from the Philippines, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, India and Indonesia late last year to understand how the business community is viewing cloud solutions and local innovation in the context of the pandemic.