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Businesses in the Asia Pacific region who use cloud services are more than twice as likely to have a greater presence in international markets, according to new research from NetSuite and Frost & Sullivan.

The study, which surveyed more than 800 mostly C-suite executives across Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore, found 70% of cloud-enabled firms surveyed were “internationalised” compared to 22% of their non-cloud brethren, while similar figures appeared for businesses entering new geographic markets over the past five years (71% cloud, 31% non-cloud). Globalisation was seen as an opportunity, rather than a threat, by 83% of organisations.

According to respondents, the main competitive advantage of the cloud was lower operating costs, increased responsiveness to customer needs, and a greater ability to enter overseas markets. All features were seen as key to accelerate the push towards internationalisation.

And similar to companies that were ‘born in the cloud’, the NetSuite research argues there is a rise of firms which are ‘born global’ – businesses which have successfully internationalised by entering overseas markets at an extremely early stage of development. The top three challenges to internationalisation in Singapore were recruiting suitable employees, taxation issues, and IT issues, with almost three quarters (73%) seeing cloud as a competitive advantage.

For Frost & Sullivan, the findings are indicative of an evolving industry in general. “Our research has shown how industry change is not just continuing, but accelerating,” said Mark Dougan, Australia and New Zealand managing director at the research firm. “Two new key factors that are driving this change have emerged from this study: significant increase in business costs and evolving customer needs.

“These trends may create new challenges for organisations, but at the same time they also create significant opportunities for growth, with internationalisation topping the list,” he added.

In April, the latest paper from the Asia Cloud Computing Association (ACCA) found that Hong Kong had overtaken Japan as the most mature Asia Pacific cloud nation. Singapore, Australia and New Zealand were all in the top five.

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The media is rife with examples of how human nature is strongly driven by fear; fear of the unknown, fear of failure, even fear of success. Human nature doesn’t leave the equation when we put on our corporate badges and walk through the glass doors of corporate UK.

We’re still human. And we still fear.

One of the major fears that plagues even the most relaxed corporate employee is the fear of failure. We advise the new guy to stay away from political quagmires. We sell against our competition with the tried and tested fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) formula. We wield fear as a weapon and we call on fear as an excuse.

It’s important to drag that fear out of the shadows. In my line of work with disaster recovery, that means bringing someone face-to-face with the terrible, horrible likelihood of A Bad Thing Happening. To do that, it’s important to remember that people tend to confront their fears if they can see a solution – a good solution. We’re all turtles, hiding in our shells until someone shows us a sliver of dawn on the horizon.

In my world – disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) – the technology has shifted fundamentally in the last few years. It’s the difference between landlines and iPhones, between Model Ts and a four wheel drive, between the pony express and email – you get the picture.

But, given that it’s a bit of an esoteric corner of the tech space, the emergence of this new technology hasn’t manifested itself in lines of eager buyers, waiting in eight hour queues for the chance to sign up. Knowledge is slow to travel – and faith in the information takes time.

The same human responses – in far more corporate clothing – come out. It’s smoke and mirrors – it can’t possibly work. Sure, but what’s the catch? And who do I call if it fails – a call centre in Moldova? And, of course…we’ve never had a disaster. That’s the place we all retreat to in our core: denial. It has never happened to us – and it will never happen to us. Surveys show that upwards of 70% of companies have had to trigger some disaster plan in the past year – and yet, it will never happen to us.

And frankly, that’s how we all get by in this world. This is the protective part of our psyche that enables us to get behind the wheel of a car, ride an airplane, or invest our money without falling into paralysing levels of anxiety. But, it can be counterproductive to keeping an open mind.

So my job becomes a timing game of dancing between the synapses in the corporate brain. Show them the facts – it will happen to you. Most likely, it won’t be a calamity or widespread event. It will probably be a huge inconvenience triggered by a power outage or faulty upgrade. And, in the few moments before they retreat back into the shell of denial, I gesture wildly towards the horizon – the solution is easier than you think.

I should do the research, but I’m willing to bet that people are far more likely to get tested for ailments where a solution is understood to be routine. Why learn you can’t be cured? Denial is far more pleasant. That’s why quick fix answers to diets and exercise and smoking cessation are so popular – because the long hard road is too much to bear.

Corporate humans are just humans in suits. And, while they may never make it to the top viral videos list, seeing a company triumph over fear and obstacles to save themselves from peril is a no-less-inspiring story than those heartwarming videos of kids and dogs. At least, to those of us battling fear. 

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The media, of course, continues to extol the virtues of the cloud, including how easy it is to get there. Migrating to the cloud is a simple affair – just call up a cloud provider and your wishes come true. The reality is quite different, however, as enterprises struggle with a wide variety of migration issues, from security to overtaxed IT teams and everything in-between.

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Around 30% of UK adults use cloud storage in a personal capacity, according to a report released today by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) – but the governing body notes concerns over some vendor practices which conflict with consumer law.

The report, which can be found in full here at a whopping 218 pages, shares concerns, such as companies being able to change the terms of a contract at any time, for any reason, and without notice, suspending or terminating a contract without notice, and automatically renewing contracts without giving notice or withdrawal rights, as key. Dixons Carphone, JustCloud and Livedrive have committed to providing fairer terms and conditions for their customers as a result of the report’s findings.

“In this rapidly-developing market, it’s important that we act now to ensure that businesses comply with the law and that consumers’ trust in these valuable services is maintained,” said Nisha Arora, CMA senior consumer director in a statement. “We welcome the fact that a number of companies have already agreed to change their terms, and expect to see improvements from other companies.”

The report uncovered some interesting statistics; currently almost 80% of consumers surveyed do not pay for their cloud storage, while in the UK 2.5 billion gigabytes of data is being created in real time every day. The most popular file type uploaded to the cloud is photos (71%), followed by self-created personal documents (32%), music (29%), and personal documents which had been sent to them (23%).

The researchers also argue the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which will take effect in less than two years, will “inevitably” have implications for the cloud storage services sector. Among the proposals outlined under the GDPR include users’ right to know if their data has been hacked, as well as greater enforcement of the ‘right to be forgotten’.

Ian Moyse, a board member of both Eurocloud UK and the Cloud Industry Forum, cites greater awareness of the GDPR as a tipping point. “Transparency and trust in cloud is going to become ever more important as the customer/consumer becomes more informed and educated on the sector and expects more,” he tells CloudTech.

“Also, as awareness, understanding and pressure comes from the combination of the new GDPR and Privacy Shield requirements on business and provider, the demands on having an understandable, clear and transparent service offering in relation to data protection [and] sovereignty, security, SLAs and offboarding processes will have mounting pressure from the industry, regulations, and the customer,” he added. “Cloud is entering the growing up phase and this will benefit the industry as a whole, not just the customer.”

In addition, the CMA has published an open letter for businesses which advises them to review their terms to ensure they are fair, as well as insist consumers get all the information they need before they buy. “If you are a cloud storage business that deals with consumers, you must ensure that your contract terms are fair and that they comply with consumer protection law,” the letter warns.