Alibaba Cloud, the digital technologies and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has continued to support a growing number of enterprises across Asia with their accelerated digital transformation progress to meet pandemic-imposed challenges in 2020. Further to the essential cloud-based technologies, Alibaba Cloud has also provided extensive talent development support to enterprises during the pandemic, in an effort to close the gap between talent supply and demand.

“In the face of challenges imposed by the pandemic, Alibaba Cloud is committed to supporting more businesses with their digital transformation requirements. Throughout 2020, we continued to support enterprises in Asia build up their digital ability and ensure business continuity in regions that were hard-hit by the pandemic,” said Selina Yuan, President of International Business, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence. “We believe that digital transformation is not only about the technology, but also the human resources. In view of this, we will continue to work with universities, incubators and partners to roll out more digital training programs across Asia in 2021 and beyond. We hope to help nurture more talent equipped with knowledge and expertise ranging from cloud-based technology, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and ultimately, support the digital transformation needs of various businesses across the markets.”

Customer digital transformation growth

A diverse base of customers across the region leveraged cloud to foster their digital transformation progress and business efficiency in 2020, and these include:

PrestoMall, Malaysia’s largest homegrown e-commerce platform adopted Alibaba Cloud’s POLARDB, a cloud-native relational database to power its next phase of growth while maintaining cost efficiency, witnessing over 40% cost reduction after the data migration according to the company. Following the successful database migration in the beginning of 2020, PrestoMall has since moved its entire IT system to Alibaba Cloud.

In Japan, enish, a game company, leveraged Alibaba Cloud’s gaming solution starting from 2020 with products ranging from its Container Service for Kubernetes, cloud-native database PolarDB, log service, and Server Migration Center to its corporate communications platform DingTalk for communications between offices. As a result, the average data processing time reduced 50% while the server cost reduced 30%. Now enish can build a test environment for its new game in only half of the time, compared to 20 days previously, and construct of a performance environment in around 7 days, a significant improvement from before the involvement with Alibaba Cloud.

More success cases and wider industry adoption of Alibaba Cloud’s technology and industry solutions from finance to entertainment were also seen in other markets: Investree, leading lending platform for SMEs in Indonesia, deployed its applications on Alibaba Cloud Container Service for Kubernetes, a cloud-native container platform for complex applications; Kumu, livestreaming and entertainment platform in the Philippines, used Alibaba Cloud’s Live Streaming Solutions to provide curators and viewers with rich and smooth experiences; Luen Fung Hang Insurance, a pioneer in insurance in Macau, leveraged Alibaba Cloud’s hybrid cloud deployment solution and security products to ensure robust and compliant operations.

Here is what the customers are saying:

“Kumu values our user experience and therefore, we want to work with a trusted cloud service provider to enhance our digital offering,” said Andrew Pineda, Chief Architect, Kumu. “With Alibaba Cloud’s strong presence in APAC and it’s proven livestreaming ability powering various business scenarios such as e-commerce livestreaming during 11.11 shopping festival, we believe their expertise is sufficient to help us in building a stronger technical platform to serve our users better.”

Mr Erwin Foo, Group Chief Technology Officer of PrestoMall said: “Due to the complexity of the e-commerce platforms, we need a reliable, robust and scalable database that can enable the growth of our dynamic business without worrying too much about the infrastructure and support needed. We are not just looking for a solution. We are looking for a long-term partner that can evolve and grow together with us.”

“In particular, the ability to use the cloud infrastructure in Asian regions without any problems was key for us. The cost performance of cloud is remarkable and the variety of services offered is also attractive. The excellent support system was also a big help during the development,” said Lin Tan, Technology Leader from enish

“By leveraging the cloud-native technology proposed by Alibaba Cloud, Investree completed the re-architecture from monolith to microservices; shortened its time of app development and deployment; reduced IT and resources expenditures and improved reliability and agility of our performance. We look forward to working more closely with Alibaba Cloud to accelerate our digital transformation down the road,” said Pak Daniel, CTO from Investree.

“Luen Fung Hang is committed to offering our customers with high-quality, secured, and constantly enhanced services. Alibaba Cloud’s comprehensive solutions and cutting-edge technologies help us tackle the challenge in meeting the shifting market demands. With this partnership, we hope to modernize and accelerate our digital transformation journey, which we believe will benefit our customers in the long term,” said Alex Leong, IT Department Head from Luen Fung Hang Insurance.

Strong commitment to digital talent training

In 2020, 20,000 participants in Indonesia attended Alibaba Cloud’s “Digital Talent Training Program”; In Malaysia, over 10,000 local IT professionals have joined Alibaba Cloud’s online trainings. In Philippines, the company scheduled to train 50,000 and certify at least 10,000 IT professionals within the next three years starting from 2021.

Digital talent development has been a long-term commitment by Alibaba Cloud as a way to contribute to local businesses and society where it operates, through initiatives such as Alibaba Cloud Academy and Alibaba Cloud Academic Empowerment Program (AAEP). Moving ahead, the company aims to partner with more universities, incubators and non-profit organizations to equip more talents with the next-generation cloud and digital skillsets.