Particularly, there is a growing concern about being disrupted by startups, who enter the market with fresh perspectives and new levels of efficiencies and awareness powered by modern digital capabilities.

With hybrid cloud computing, APJ organizations can take advantage of the ease of collaboration, lowered costs, and decreased time-to-market that cloud-based software development and testing can provide. It gives businesses the ability to handle unpredictable spikes in demand, as leaders can always choose to upscale in an instant. Operating in both worlds allow leaders to continuously tinker with the balance of computing resources assigned to on-premise infrastructure and public cloud to adapt to the uneven APJ environment.

It’s clear that in-country public cloud infrastructure is critical in APJ. Three-quarters of survey respondents in research shared in 2017 by the Cloud Security Alliance APAC said that local cloud infrastructure is important for them (CSA APAC). Public cloud vendors have listened: AWS launched a new availability zone for Mumbai in June 2016 (AWS), while Microsoft announced the Seoul and Busan Microsoft Cloud regions in February 2017 (Microsoft).

2. Hybrid Clouds Offer a Sustainable Approach to Innovation

According to the DTI, disruption is necessitating investments in infrastructure while keeping the cost of operations lean. Seven in ten businesses are incentivized to invest in new IT infrastructure and digital skills, but only if there is no cost increase (Digital Transformation Index).

In a study by IDG Research Services carried out in conjunction with Dell EMC, hybrid cloud reduces overall IT costs by 24 percent, allowing organizations to relocate these savings into new initiatives that inspire innovation across the business. Furthermore, companies with more workloads on hybrid clouds experienced nearly 50 percent more IT cost reductions than those with fewer hybrid cloud workloads. Another study found that over three years, hybrid cloud users enjoy 67 percent in cost-savings over three years (Principled Technologies).

3. Enable the Region’s Leapfrogging to Advanced Technologies

The APJ region has the potential to lead IT transformation in many areas, and it is already leading in some. IDC reports that APAC has the fastest growing robotics market, and it will soon become the frontline for IoT worldwide. There is a positive inclination in more than half (53 percent) of APAC organizations to use big data and analytics for their businesses. As many companies in the region were established relatively recently, they have less legacy infrastructure holding them back from making these leaps.

It is important to recognize that to support all these innovations in a rapidly changing environment, organizations need a flexible solution that can support these workloads in any direction the business needs to move. Hybrid clouds offer that enhanced agility.

With more than half (57 percent) of APAC companies reported to have a formal strategy for digital transformation in place (451 Research), hybrid cloud implementations can give them a competitive edge against their peers. Deploying and managing hybrid clouds has been increasingly simplified, especially with the advent of hyper-converged infrastructure solutions (Dell). It is clear that the stage is set for the APAC region to embrace digital and drive innovations for the world, and hybrid cloud can be that malleable path that companies can take towards that increasingly bright future for the region.