The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic has forced a dramatic acceleration, both in the use of digital platforms and investment in digital transformation. Consumers have moved dramatically toward online channels, and companies and industries are scrambling to respond.
Digital platforms allow us to conduct economic interactions safely in these times and their role is expected to continue to grow even beyond the pandemic. Many enterprises are faced with the need to scale up digital operations rapidly and now recognise that their physical IT hardware simply isn’t up to the challenge.
COVID-19 has sharply brought into focus the need for greater scalability and resilience in technology infrastructure. Enterprises are realising that migrating data and services to the cloud is the answer to achieving scalable, cost-effective infrastructure, and agile operations. According to KPMG’s recent global survey, 63 per cent of organisations say they’ve increased their digital transformation budget as a result of COVID-19.
As organisations look to streamline processes and integrate all the digital technologies they use to operate and provide services to customers. Harnessing big data in the cloud is at the core of this kind of digital transformation.
CloudMile CEO Spencer Liu on helping Asia meet cloud demand
Companies today recognise the urgent need to accelerate their shift to the cloud and start exploring the vast range of services and capabilities enabled by hyperscale cloud platforms like Google, Amazon and Microsoft. Despite this urgent need for digital transformation, the fact is that across emerging markets in the Asia Pacific, there are still many late bloomers when it comes to cloud adoption. Data Security concerns are the primary reason for this hesitancy in cloud adoption, especially in the government sector.
Organisations looking to adopt cloud strategies will need to define a roadmap towards the modernisation of IT infrastructure and ensure their cloud architecture is designed for data privacy and security.
“We have been actively cooperating with overseas public authorities to provide AI technology services to assist governments in digital transformation and provide more valuable services to the public,” says Spencer Liu, CEO of CloudMile.
Spencer Liu was previously a founding member of Yam Digital where he led the first Taiwanese e-commerce business to its eventual sale to eBay back in 2002. In 20 years as an entrepreneur and investor, he has specialised in big data and cloud services. In 2013, he founded eCloudValley and later at Quanta, worked closely with teams at Google and Android.
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The State of Cloud-Driven Transformation report found that in two years, 69 per cent of organisations are getting ready to shift over 60 per cent of their infrastructure and applications to the cloud. Further, 66 per cent say that leveraging real-time data analytics enabled by AI/ML is highly important to monitoring and gaining insights across cloud services, applications, and infrastructure.
In the Asia Pacific, the Singapore government is amongst the first to have harnessed the power of the cloud and AI technology through their partnership with cloud specialists CloudMile. During the pandemic, they empowered their citizens with digital apps that leverage cloud data and machine learning for contract tracing, mass vaccination and travel safety.
Since its inception in 2017, CloudMile has assisted more than 400 companies on digital transformation and cloud migration. Today over 100 employees work out of its Singapore HQ, with offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia and a state-of-the-art R&D lab in Taiwan.
CloudMile’s capabilities include the full range of cloud and AI consulting and transformation services:
- Digital Transformation strategy: Cloud Adoption and AI transformation programs
- Cloud Migration: assessment, architecture, Data warehouse and VM migration
- IT modernisation: application modernisation, Hybrid & Multi-Cloud setup
- Data-Driven Business Transformation with Machine Learning driven Intelligent applications
- Big Data & Machine Learning: IoT Solutions, ML discovery delivery, and design.
- Managed Services: Cloud management platform, ML monitoring, Platform and API as a service
Tracing the CloudMile journey: innovation and partnerships as the key to becoming a trusted cloud provider
“We have the expertise to manage AI services based on the cloud data. We are also your AI partner as a cloud vendor and that makes us unique,” says CEO Liu. “Our mission is to make digital changes possible for every enterprise by modernising IT and deploying digital solutions at scale for a successful digital future,” he adds.
CloudMile’s success in Asia is built upon their core competency in managing enterprise data, feels Liu. Building solutions for a customer like the Singapore government requires technology skills to help manage and find data quickly. In about 2.5 weeks to roll out their product, CloudMile was able to set up a solution that could query 3 million data points in 3 seconds.
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This ability to deliver speed has helped customers like the Singapore government decide that the cloud is a viable option. “Four or five years ago we never thought it could be done so easily,” says Jeremy Heng. Singapore Country Manager at CloudMile. Continuing the Singapore example, he says: “With the vaccination program in Singapore we leveraged our skills in data analytics to build a tool to [help] implement the smooth rollout of the vaccine.” As Singapore has a nation-wide vaccination programme, CloudMile was tasked to help implement the rollout for a select part of the government sector.
Heng added, “Simply building a fantastic AI algorithm is not a success.” The idea behind CloudMile’s R&D AI lab in Taiwan is to develop AI-based solutions that customers can take to market quickly. Solutions such as their Social Navigator solution and AI-driven ad platform ADsvantage are fine examples of leveraging AI so that customers can quickly benefit.
Winner of the 2020 Google Cloud Public Sector Partner of the Year award
CloudMile was recognised for the company’s achievements in the Google Cloud ecosystem, helping joint customers in various industries, including the public sector. CloudMile has earned the award for its extensive support on the combination of cloud, AI, machine learning, and big data analytics.
CloudMile is Google Cloud’s Premier Partner and their investment in technical skills has helped them complete the rigorous process of Google Cloud MSP certification, becoming the MSP partner in Taiwan and Hong Kong. With over 60+ Google Cloud certified professionals CloudMile is one of only 36 MSP partners around the globe. Spencer Liu is confident that CloudMile will soon be acknowledged by Google Cloud on the MSP recognition in Singapore market after the company’s great achievement of MSP in North Asia.”
The latest funding makes CloudMile a company to watch
CloudMile has just raised US$20 million in accumulated funding to open up the AI and cloud market in SEA. With plans to expand into Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia, they have recently recruited former Minister of Science and Technology Chen Liang Gee as business strategic advisor and former GM KU Chung Chiang of MediaTek Singapore to be the VP of engineering.
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They plan to utilise the Series B funding to provide services in SEA very soon. “We plan to work with potential partners and strategic investors to expand our footprint in SEA. And we expect to begin our next run of series C fundraising in Q3 this year,” said Liu. “CloudMile will connect international resources more quickly and expand in retail, medical, financial, manufacturing, and public sectors and inject innovation momentum into the industry,” said Liu regarding the company’s vision for the region.
Investors will be closely watching the company as the next potential tech unicorn from the Asian market. For more information visit: https://www.mile.cloud/
Digital transformation means navigating the cloud journey
Embarking on a digital transformation makes it imperative to get on board with moving to the cloud if you want to achieve scale, resilience, and agility in your digital products and services. To safely navigate the cultural and organisational changes this shift entails, organisations need a trusted cloud specialist with the ability to work with the cloud hyperscalers like Google Cloud.
Leading cloud vendors like CloudMile are leading the way by tackling the business needs of the shift towards a digital future for Asian companies.
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