IDC Reveals its Top Predictions For Cloud In 2023 And Beyond

• Most IT buyers will pick cloud services provider based on carbon emissions
• Companies will adopt cyber recovery-as-a-service as ransomware attacks increase

IDC predicts that the complexities of digital business and IT budget pressures will drive 60% of Asia-based 1000 organisations (A1000) by 2024 to increase Financial Development Operations (FinOps) maturity with granular chargebacks, benchmarking, and multiple cloud optimisation. 

This is just one of IDC’s predictions unveiled in its latest report, IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2023 Predictions – Asia/Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) Implications.

Organisations in the region have accelerated digital transformation (DX) and the adoption of the cloud and various cloud operating models in the past two years. With strong headwinds on the horizon and recessionary pressures rising, IDC said businesses will seek to derive greater benefits from their cloud deployments beyond typical gains such as IT productivity.

“Asia/Pacific organisations are maturing in their use of cloud, data and new technologies to drive greater efficiencies and deliver on innovation and value creation for the business. These will increase their focus on automation, cloud management, FinOps, sustainability and cost management,” says IDC Asia/Pacific Cloud and Software research director, Daphne Chung. “There are growing concerns though that are placing greater pressure on budgets which require organisations to ensure the greater alignment and collaboration between IT and business to deliver on achieving business goals.”

IDC's Worldwide Cloud 2023 predictions – APEJ Implications are as follows:

1. Sovereign Cloud: By 2025, 30% of the Asia-based 2000 organisations (A2000) will move 10% of their workloads to a sovereign cloud provider to address data, technical, and operational requirements.
2. Autonomous Operations: By 2027, 45% of companies will save over US$1 million (RM4.3 million) a year using event-driven automation to improve resiliency, reduce repetitive IT ops tasks, and move to a fully autonomous digital infrastructure.
3. Deployment Consistency: By 2025, 75% of organisations will favour technology partners that can provide a consistent application deployment experience across cloud, edge, and dedicated environments.
4. Multi-cloud Data: By 2025, 40% of the A2000 will adopt multi-cloud data logistic platforms to enable active data migration between hyper-scalers to optimise costs, reduce vendor dependencies and improve governance.
5. Network Transit: By 2026, 55% of enterprises will adopt cloud WANs and transit networks to improve the availability, latency, performance, reliability, and scale of their cloud and edge applications and workloads.
6. Specialised Infrastructure: By 2027, 70% of organisations will invest in specialised cloud-based performance-intensive computing environments to gain agility, scale and faster business insights.
7. Cyber Recovery: By 2027, 30% of the A2000 will adopt cyber recovery-as-a-service (CRaaS) as ransomware attacks increase and require sophisticated recovery strategies not readily available through DIY efforts.
8. Cloud Sustainability: By 2024, 60% of IT buyers will make their decision to work with a cloud services provider on their ability to demonstrate how they can help reduce their client's indirect carbon emissions.
9. AI-Assisted Development: By 2027, AI will dramatically increase developer velocity by automatically generating code to meet functional business requirements for 70% of new digital solutions in production.
10. Cost Optimisation: Complexities of digital business and IT budget pressures will drive 60% of A1000 companies by 2024 to increase FinOps maturity with granular chargebacks, benchmarking, and multiple cloud optimisation.

The predictions are discussed in greater detail in their report, IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Cloud 2023 Predictions – APEJ Implications.