SAP Indochina Managing Director underscores that the German enterprise giant’s Business Transformation as a Service (BTaaS) offering RISE with SAP enables organisations, including those that belong to the public sector, to design their digital transformation in the cloud according to the organisations’ needs.
The recently held seminar “Cloud Transformation for Public Sector in a New Normal” hosted by SAP gathered Thailand’s industry experts from the public sectors to exchange views on the country’s readiness– specifically those organisations that provide government services– for a cloud transformation. Along with the discussion on the advantages of cloud adoption, the event tackled the public sectors’ pressing concerns that come with cloud transformation such as citizen data sovereignty, security, and privacy.
Digital Transformation in the Cloud to Deliver Better Services
According to Gartner’s recent data, Thailand’s cloud spending is forecasted to achieve 28.2{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} growth to (US$1.1 billion) 34.4 billion baht in 2022. Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, Thai SMEs, which are the backbone of the country’s economy, have accelerated their modernisation strategies by adopting cloud-based technologies to keep them agile in the post-pandemic era.
With Thailand’s private sector harnessing cloud transformation and experiencing its benefits during these times of disruptions, Dr. Sak Segkhoonthod, Advisor of Digital Transformation at Thailand’s Electronic Transaction Development Agency & & President of CSA Thailand Chapter, expressed the need for the public sectors to move to the cloud.
“Digital transformation complexity has long prevented organisations in the public sector from being able to service citizens better and respond faster. The pandemic, rising demand for digital services, and a need for government employees to work from home have sped up this industry’s usage of the cloud and the need to opt for cloud-first policies,” said Dr. Sak.
He mentioned some of the benefits of leveraging the Cloud that public organisations can achieve such as more efficient budget management with pay-per-use package options and scalability according to demand to better deliver services to the people. He commented:
“In Thailand, public organisations can easily move to cloud as the country’s current budget disbursement regulations on the cloud can be easily managed on-demand.”
Dr. Sak detailed that Thailand has been at the forefront of cloud adoption in ASEAN over the recent decade employing several in-country cloud standards through Cloud Security Alliance (CSA). One of the initiatives that have accelerated cloud adoption in Thailand’s public sectors is CSA’s Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge (CCSK), a compulsory requirement for engineers involved in cloud computing or security namely Systems Engineers, Cybersecurity Analysts, and Enterprise Architects.
Collaborating with the Right Cloud Partner
Grp. Capt. Amorn Chomchoey, Deputy Secretary-General of the NCSA (National Cyber Security Agency), also present during the seminar, emphasised that aside from migration strategy, organisation’s readiness, project management, tools, and deployment as key factors prior to cloud transformation, the public sectors also need to focus on governance and security concerns. He stated that security and privacy issues can be tackled in partnership with select cloud providers that could offer cloud solutions centred on privacy management and control levels in compliance with both international and CSA standards.
“With careful forethought of these operational considerations, enterprises can avoid derailed cloud migrations and begin to realize the value they were promised with the cloud.” Grp. Capt. Amorn stated.
SAP Indochina Managing Director Atul Tuli shared how public sector organisations can benefit from harnessing digital tools that would enable them to transform, deliver greater efficiencies, and streamline services. He explained that RISE with SAP as a subscription-based offering caters to industries of different sizes and lines of business and enables organisations to design the most appropriate digital transformation strategy.
“All SAP solutions including RISE with SAP are meeting the requirements of the ISO 27001 standard. We have a specialist team who provides knowledge to our customers on the data privacy topic. We also offer options for data residency as many public organizations increasingly need cloud services that ensure their data is managed and stored in the country. Using our hyperscaler partnerships – such as AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, SAP’s in-country cloud will be primed to meet the tight regulatory requirements of the public sector in Thailand,” he said.
RISE with SAP enables organisations to embark on a holistic and innovative business transformation that is more sustainable. Moreover, according to SAP, the concierge BTaaS offering delivers faster time to value with a reduction of up to 20{aa282f308afcc222aaa21b0478c79e01a8fedd01972e2180867097bd93930f22} over five years in the TCO of SAP S/4HANA Cloud against a traditional ERP deployment.
