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A new whitepaper from the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) argues there is a gap between data analytics services offered by vendors and the requirements of Asia Pacific organisations looking to engage them.
The findings, which appear in the paper ‘Data Analytics to Bridge Knowledge Gaps’, finds that 62% of companies surveyed use data analytics to some extent, yet less than half use analytics for making financial decisions and only 5% use it for human resources purposes.
The paper points out that cloud computing is an “obvious technological enabler” of analytics, and companies who continue to be sluggish in their cloud deployments – such as those who perceive industry regulation as a barrier to adopting cloud – are already at a disadvantage.
ACCA offers five recommendations across various stakeholders to ‘unlock’ data analytics on cloud. Analytics providers need to simplify their tools and develop more capacity building services to generate greater demand; as the report notes, training and consulting for clients is “perhaps the area where providers to date are the most successful.” Regulators need to promote privacy regulations that “reflect the reality of big data and analytics,” while ecosystem players – such as investors, accelerators and third party consultants – need to show how business sectors can be disrupted through analytics. Innovators, the report noted, need to keep going as they are.
“The impact that efficient use of data analytics could create to APAC businesses is profound and imminent. However, to drive greater adoption and value, the entire ecosystem needs to play their part,” said Arun Sundar, chief strategy officer at TrustSphere and chairman of the ACCA Emerging Cloud Services Working Group. “The role of governments and trade bodies is critical at this juncture to bring the demand and supply side in alignment with industry best practices and frameworks.
“This will help to allay concerns about issues such as privacy and cross-border data transfer policies which will encourage business leaders in APAC to leverage analytics for improved business outcomes for both enterprises and consumers alike,” Sundar added.
Previous ACCA reports have focused on the ‘cloud readiness’ of Asia Pacific nations. In April this year, the latest analysis found Hong Kong to have overtaken previous leader Japan to secure the #1 spot.
You can read the full whitepaper here (PDF).