The transition to the cloud has been a game changer for many enterprises within the Asia Pacific (APAC) region. This progression, often referred to as migration, involves prototyping, testing, and in certain cases experimentation that has extended throughout the current era. In APAC, cloud-native spending has been significant due to the constantly expanding cloud computing traffic environment. Notably, the APAC cloud-native applications market is expected to hold the highest CAGR (24%) from 2022 to 2028. This trend is driven by the vast pool of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are increasingly embracing cloud computing, especially cloud-native applications, as a means to enhance their operational efficiency.
Cloud has evolved from its early stages to become an essential service that many modern organisations rely on today. In today’s cloud-native application economy, business leaders must consider the question; how can they continue to tap into opportunities provided by the service-based model of the cloud and reap the full benefits of cloud computing?
While cloud technology is not new, cloud-as-a-platform today is designed to meet the growing demand for high-performance computing within the IT department. The IT function requires cloud technology to provide flexibility, scalability, security, and global access through interconnected data centres that make up the cloud infrastructure. In Singapore, while the cloud services market is forecasted to reach US$3.6 billion this year, IDC predicts that by 2025, 75% of companies in APAC will favour technology partners that can provide a consistent application deployment experience across the cloud, proving it to become a massive force in the region.
Against this backdrop, the modern concept of cloud computing, particularly cloud-native technology, is primarily focused on unleashing the actual potential of cloud technology at the application level. Cloud-native applications, with their modular and adaptable structure, can be quickly altered at a rapid pace and on a large scale when required. In this regard, businesses that have transitioned to operating with cloud-native applications can provide superior scalability and resilience while delivering improved user experiences.
Prevent the App-pocalypse
However, this shift also represents an overhaul of the traditional software development process – one that most businesses are not prepared to handle. In this case, an application backlog is likely to occur where systems run the risk of increased fragility, brittleness, and vulnerability to security threats. This would make it harder for IT to fix and update existing software, as well as introduce new features and functionalities to customers, users, intermediaries, and partners.
Transitioning to a cloud-native development approach can also be quite costly. Based on our Cloud-Native Development Report, businesses globally spend a whopping US$2.7 million on average building their cloud-native infrastructure environment from scratch. This is inherently due to the hiring and onboarding costs of building a specialised team and is also a key reason why many companies have not embraced cloud-native development.
To overcome this challenge many business leaders have turned to high-performance low-code as a means to circumvent the situation and dramatically accelerate the entire transition process – all while reducing the strain on developers and minimising the overall total cost of ownership.
Revolutionise customer experience with cloud
Adopting a cloud-native development approach enables organisations to build, deploy, and operate applications that are designed to meet the needs of today’s digital-savvy customers. For this to succeed, customers, the IT department, and the organisation as a whole need to work in unison to deliver an improved user experience. Due to the ever-changing demands in the market, cloud-native application services should be scalable to allow businesses to maintain optimal performance and avoid any degradation of performance.
Cloud-native applications also allow organisations to capture and analyse large amounts of customer data in real-time. This means that companies can now make granular adjustments for each user based on their behaviour and preferences, in a way that was not feasible before. Within this dynamically evolving and competitive market, personalisation power is a crucial benefit that the cloud-native application economy offers to businesses seeking an advantage over their competition.
While IT was previously seen as a cost centre and regarded as a loss on the balance sheet, it has now evolved to become a profit centre in the new cloud-native application economy. This offers an opportunity for companies to create new go-to-market strategies that innovate in critically new ways, and embrace the agility and adaptability that was crucial during the pandemic.
Looking ahead, high-performance low-code will become a clear alternative to traditional IT, enabling businesses to transform and pivot faster in the cloud-native application economy without compromising on quality.
This article titled “Trading like a bull in the cloud-native application economy” was contributed by Mark Weaser, Vice President APAC at OutSystems
About the author
Mark Weaser is the Vice President at OutSystems Asia-Pacific, with more than 25 years of experience in successfully building profitable businesses and driving revenue growth. Mark has held leadership positions at several global technology and supply chain companies including Eagle Spirits Holdings, Allegro Development Corporation, Qumu, Modern Terminals, Manugistics, Manhattan Associates, EXE Technologies and Telxon. In his roles, he was responsible for P&L management, business development, strategic planning, market strategy, solutions sales management, strategic alliances, multicultural team building and new product introductions.
Mark holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration (Finance) from the University of
Southern California, and is fluent in conversational Mandarin Chinese.