Reach for the stars: how cloud is helping APAC companies extend range

Businesses today increasingly need to run workloads in the most appropriate environment: they need flexibility more than ever, optimized performance and cost savings wherever possible. The cloud environment is fast moving, and enterprises have huge amounts of data to manage.

Chinese and other APAC-based multinationals looking to expand globally face challenges accessing the right levels of connectivity and cloud services in their target markets. Regulations will always be present, particularly in the face of a company’s ambitions to break into hard-to-reach markets

How does cloud address these challenges?

With so much data to manage, companies need maximum visibility over all their assets and providers, while managing immense pressure to grow the business and unlock potential in hard-to-reach markets.

Midea chooses Open Cloud Alliance

Orange was recently chosen by Midea, a leading global consumer appliances company from China, to be its sole provider of public cloud services across Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Visibility was a key component of Midea’s need to transform its global infrastructure and enhance its global networking capabilities. Cost efficiency is another big benefit, as is the multicloud solution enabling flexibility and scalability for future international business growth.

Midea opted for the multicloud route because it was finding it hard to control its IT activities and manage the various service level agreements (SLAs) of local sub-contractors. When your regional and local teams are responsible for IT and connectivity at a local level, it is typically difficult to gain a clear overall picture of your global IT estate.

By moving away from a mainly on-premises model to a centralized multicloud model, Midea could enjoy enhanced visibility that gives better control over its IT infrastructure and IT spend.

Orange is able to give Midea both the required network connectivity and cloud as a bundle by leveraging the Open Cloud Alliance, a strategic initiative started by Orange and Huawei, which enables enterprises to easily and seamlessly deploy public, cloud-based systems worldwide – even in highly-regulated locations. Midea can leverage this to unlock hard-to-reach markets in Africa and South America, for example, and the Orange offering also gives Midea a centralized point of contact for both connectivity and cloud.

For the first time, Midea will be able to standardize and centralize its IT and policy enforcement, speeding up application requests and ultimately time to market. Application approval and deployment will now take hours instead of days.

Why Orange?

With the Midea example, Orange takes the weight off the customer. Local Midea offices don’t need to place orders with local partners for IT services; they just put orders through Orange. This provides Midea with complete visibility and control of IT infrastructure backed by a centralized SLA. The company is empowered with better control of budgets via a catalog of global pricing as well as peace of mind with enhanced security from Orange Cyberdefense.

All data is stored in a compliant environment and the overall secure public cloud solution is delivered by the Open Cloud Alliance, which incorporates Orange Flexible Engine. The Open Cloud Alliance allows customers to host their data on every continent and deploy services on an international scale. It ensures that customers’ data is always hosted in accordance with local and global regulations. The solution enables Midea to centrally manage its global infrastructure efficiently, enhancing customer and employee experience while providing flexibility and scalability for future international business growth.

Empowered to reach into complex markets

A report by Dimensional Research found that 77% of businesses are planning to adopt a multicloud strategy in the next two years in order to better meet their needs. Orange consultants worked with Midea to manage the company’s cloud migration using a phased approach to minimize business disruption. Once deployed, Midea will benefit from both the global connectivity expertise of Orange and the global reach of the Open Cloud Alliance to enable expansion into previously tough-to-reach territories.

According to Gartner, the worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 17% in 2020 to a value of $266.4 billion, up from $227.8 billion in 2019. In Asia Pacific, spending on public cloud services is predicted to increase nearly three-fold between 2019 and 2023, to a value of $76.1 billion at a CAGR of 33.9%, according to IDC. Orange Business was recently named joint leader in the Asian telecom cloud market by GlobalData, who cited our strong professional services capabilities, continuous enhancements of our cloud portfolio and wide partner ecosystem as highlights.

Midea is reaping numerous benefits by working with Orange. The company will enjoy a clear, overall view of its IT estate and has streamlined operations by removing language barriers and multiple supplier costs, enabling Midea to focus on its core business and continue growing in new markets.

Download our brochure on the Open Cloud Alliance to find out how Orange Business can help your business.