Enterprises across the ASEAN are reshuffling their ICT priorities in 2020 to urgently address the COVID-19 impact. Against this backdrop, cloud, networking, mobility, communications and security have been shortlisted for the top five predictions based on their market potential and impact in ASEAN by GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s latest report, ‘2021 ASEAN ICT Predictions’, reveals the five top trends that are expected to happen in each technology domain this year: (i) public cloud will lead the adoption, (ii) SD-WAN will be a common service for organizations, (iii) enterprise 5G solutions will move from development to pre-commercial stage, (iv) more domestic players will enter CPaaS market and (v) managed security services will be the best option for businesses to keep up with the technology.

Alfie Amir, Principal Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “With critical services such as cloud, networking, unified communications (UC) and security in place, ASEAN enterprises will have a stronger ICT foundation that enable them to accelerate their digital transformation journey.”

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Enterprises are expanding their public cloud deployment to support remote employees and ensure business continuity. In parallel, global cloud providers are actively expanding their presence in the region to extend their domestic market reach. As cloud adoption is still very low, it is forecasted to grow by 8.7% year-on-year (YoY) in 2021.

For networking, SD-WAN will become a standard service. Similar with cloud, SD-WAN will be an efficient solution for enterprises to address the increase in complexity in managing workloads across network and cloud domains. The overall networking market in ASEAN is forecasted to grow at 6.5% YoY this year.

As 5G ecosystem continues to develop, service providers and enterprises are expected to accelerate their initiatives to soft launch 5G applications. Telcos will also start to merge their 5G and IoT initiatives, leveraging existing capabilities to enhance current solutions and develop new applications. As a result, the mobility market is expected to increase by 6.7% in 2021.

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

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Mr Amir continues: “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 center solutions being offered by most telcos, adding CPaaS is a logical step to further unlock their communications capabilities.”

Managed security services will be the preferred way for enterprises to keep up with the rapid advancement in the technology. While the managed security service market is relatively small (accounts for about 30% of the total security market), it is beginning to pick up and expected to increase by 3.4% in 2021.

Mr Amir concludes: “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.”

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