Industries such as retail and financial services are expected to witness high returns from investment in predictive cloud analytics, which is relatively a niche market in Asia Pacific, according to Frost & Sullivan.
The consultancy firm said in a new report that analytics are expected to prove particularly valuable in forecasting trends in consumer spending and customer satisfaction.
As the demand for optimization and real-time data soars, enterprises across the region are integrating cloud analytics into their business models and fuelling the growth of this new area.
“Cloud analytics solutions offer a scalable platform that guarantees efficient utilization of resources and quicker decision making, essential in industries such as banking and retail,” said Treepti Jaswal, ICT industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan.
The company notes that, as with most cloud services, the costs of deploying cloud analytics has been highlighted as a barrier to adoption, especially among smaller enterprises and in developing economies.
Another key challenge is the lack of understanding and awareness of cloud computing, especially in countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
Also, security concerns are ubiquitous across enterprises of all sizes and all countries in the region when it comes to cloud services. With cloud analytics, enterprises worry that cloud providers may be privy to too much of their data, particularly in government bodies and educational institutes.
“Once enterprises recognize that the intersection between analytics and cloud technologies will create opportunities to process and use big data on a secure scale and ensure business growth, migration to cloud analytics will gather pace,” said Jaswal. “Public cloud for analytics will become the solution of choice for big data workloads.”
Jaswal said it is important for enterprises to be aware of the offerings provided by small analytics firms in this field, instead of focusing solely on the portfolio of large companies.
Recently, startups are garnering significant interest from venture capitalists, demonstrating their potential to compete with established competitors.