Budget and Technology Integration Biggest Obstacles to Cloud Adoption in Singapore

·        Singapore survey shows 70% of business leaders
agree on urgency of cloud adoption to support business growth

·        75% have no plans, or
have just started on their digital transformation journey

SINGAPORE, 29 AUGUST 2016 – According to a recent survey by cloud
advisory and solutions firm Alpha7, while Singapore businesses are aware of the
need for digitalisation and cloud adoption to increase productivity and drive
business growth, budget and technology integration remains a big obstacle for
cloud adoption.

Seven in 10 business leaders say that cloud
adoption is urgent now and over the next two years to support business growth;
three in four state they have no plans, or have just started on their digital
transformation journey. They also say the top obstacles towards cloud adoption
are budget (26 per cent), followed by technology integration (21 per cent).

Alpha7, which has been helping small- and
medium-sized businesses and large enterprises with digital transformation and
cloud adoption since 2014, concludes that businesses are still not ready across
people, processes, and technology.

Lynette Seah, CEO and Founder of Alpha7, said:
“We’ve been out there for two years, meeting with businesses across many
industries and what we’re consistently seeing the gap between knowledge and
adoption. Similar to many other business decisions, budget and integration
remains the biggest obstacle, but we feel the real issue here is people. Key
decision makers don’t know how or what to do, or where to start, and this
affects their expectations of budget and integration.”

The survey was conducted at Alpha7’s June
Digital HR Transformation workshop, attended by more than 100 business leaders
from a variety of industries, including construction, retail and professional
services, with representatives from SMEs to large MNCs.

Respondents also provided additional insight
into the readiness of cloud adoption in Singapore. 60 per cent stated that
Singapore is competitive in cloud adoption as compared with other countries in
the region, and nearly half (45 per cent) said that their own organisations are
ready for cloud adoption. They also specified that Operations (25 per cent),
finance (23 per cent) and HR (19 per cent) were the business functions
identified as most important for automation.

Alpha7’s cloud advisory unit identifies gaps
across a business’s people, processes, and technology. From there, Alpha7
recommends tailored cloud solution packages to address the business’s unique
set of challenges and opportunities. The result is improved speed to market,
reduced costs, increased competitiveness, and efficiency gains.

Lynette added: “The first step to addressing a
problem is to admit that you don’t know what you don’t know, and to seek help
to cover those knowledge gaps in this digital age. We help businesses identify
and answer the questions that really matter at the outset of their cloud and
digital transformation journey. What should be replaced and how much can be
saved? How much will it cost and how disruptive will it be? To what extent is
agility and time-to-market a value attribute to your business? And, what
considerations are needed when introducing cloud security and governance?
Alpha7 helps businesses understand this, allowing them to identify their
priorities, constraints, and investments across people, processes, and
technology.”