A new survey showed that small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) in the Asia Pacific (APAC) are gaining significant IT security benefits from cloud computing adoption.
Research company comScore conducted the region-wide “Cloud Security Survey” on 500 companies comprising of small and medium businesses in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India and the US.
The study said across APAC, 57% of cloud users reported reduced time spent on managing security. The study found that cloud-adopting SMBs in Hong Kong are spending 23 hours per week to manage security -- nearly half of what they used to spend before transitioning to the cloud. This compares to 30 hours of time savings per week by cloud-adopting SMBs in Singapore, 29 hours for India, and 25 hours for Malaysia.
On average, APAC SMBs are saving an averaged 26% on their IT budget due to using the cloud. The IT budget savings vary widely across the markets, though -- 30% for Malaysia SMBs, 28% for India SMBs, 26% for Hong Kong SMBs, and 17% for Singapore SMBs, the study said.
Cloud users in APAC said they experienced higher levels of security since moving to the "cloud," with cloud-adopting SMBs in India benefitting the most -- 64% for India SMBs, 52% for Malaysia SMBs, 51% for Hong Kong SMBs, and 43% for Singapore SMBs, the study further said.
In addition, cloud users in APAC reported spending less time worrying about their company's susceptibility to cyber-attacks -- 52% for India SMBs, 48% for Singapore SMBs, and 47% for Hong Kong SMBs. The study further said cloud-adopting SMBs have been re-investing the time and money spent in managing security prior to using cloud services on growing their businesses. The survey shows that security benefits of cloud computing are dispelling the adoption barriers for SMBs in APAC.