Hybrid work and productivity driving cloud phone adoption in Asia, according to senior executives

Leaders from Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand joined Zoom and OpenGov for a series of discussions about cloud communications.

Like many markets around the world, the Asia-Pacific region has seen both an increase in hybrid work and a shift toward cloud communication to help employees work from anywhere. To close out 2022, Zoom partnered with OpenGov Asia to host top public sector leaders in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand. We discussed the impact of cloud communication on the digitalisation journey and how enterprise voice services can transition easily to the cloud.

According to event speakers, businesses face increased pressure to improve productivity and meet the growing demand for hybrid and remote work. To perform their jobs, remote workers need better tools and communication capabilities. 

One of those tools is cloud telephony. For most organisations, the ability to pick up the phone and connect with a customer, vendor, or partner is an essential part of doing business. Apart from providing a line of communication that credible businesses need, enterprise phone systems also bring a level of immediacy and intimacy to real-time communications, further helping businesses understand and deliver on their customers’ needs. This is achieved using a flexible platform approach with easy-to-integrate and centrally deployed features such as compliance recording, detailed call logs and reporting dashboards.

Enterprise phone systems need to be able to handle the demands of an international workforce by delivering reliable, high-quality calling at a global scale. Cloud telephony allows employees to make and receive calls from any internet-connected device rather than a fixed phone line, answering the call for greater flexibility and connectivity.

Communication platforms are undeniably crucial to the success of hybrid teams. A cutting-edge communications platform like Zoom could help increase output, expand possibilities, and elevate employee engagement.

We heard directly from senior executives in each country with live polling at our events. This helped us glean insights into their biggest priorities and challenges going into 2023. Here are a few takeaways:

When asked, “What is your main driver to moving your business phone system to the cloud?” leaders in each country identified different priorities. 

• Thailand's attendees were overwhelmingly driven by the need to support a hybrid workforce (60%).
• In Indonesia, 28% identified the hybrid workforce as a main driver. The remaining attendees were equally split between cost-savings (24%), access to feature-rich options (24%), and simplifying multi-location management (24%).
• Singapore attendees were the least driven by a hybrid workforce (12%). Instead, the majority (44%) said they wished to simplify multi-location management with a cloud business phone system. 
• In the Philippines, attendees were nearly equally split between cost savings (26%), hybrid workforce (23%), simplifying multi-location management (23%) and access to feature-rich options (23%).

Attendees from different countries each responded to the question, “What is the biggest challenge in your phone systems to the cloud?”

• Budget (35%) was a top challenge for attendees in Thailand.
• Thirty-three percent of Singapore attendees said security and compliance risks were their biggest challenge.
• In Indonesia, attendees indicated their challenges were split between security and compliance risks (31%) and executive support/top management strategy (31%).
• In the Philippines, leaders said people and skillsets (26%) were the biggest challenge, followed closely by legacy infrastructure (22%).

Data and communication security was seen as a top priority for phone systems by attendees from the Philippines (52%), Singapore (46%), and Indonesia (42%). Thailand leaders said their top priority was increased productivity (40%).

Across the board, attendees indicated their top criteria for selecting a cloud phone provider was performance (Indonesia, 50%; Thailand, 42%; the Philippines, 36%; Singapore, 29%) followed by security (Indonesia, 31%; Singapore, 29%; Thailand, 27%; the Philippines, 23%).

For those looking to select a cloud phone provider, Zoom Phone can help address many of the priorities and concerns identified by our event polls:

Security was a hot topic at our events, with many attendees identifying it as a top concern and their biggest priority. Event speakers emphasised the importance of selecting a service provider that takes cloud security seriously. 

Zoom Phone has a host of features to help customers keep their communications secure and compliant, such as encryption and private network peering. 

Zoom Phone is also included in a variety of certifications, attestations, and standards that apply to the entire Zoom platform, which include SOC 2 Type II, Cyber Essentials certification – NCSC, CSA STAR Assessment (Level 2), and more.

When it comes to enterprise voice, performance matters — that’s what each of our audiences selected as their top criterion for evaluating cloud phone providers. Zoom’s unified communications platform, which includes our phone system, was named a Leader in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), Worldwide. Gartner’s report evaluates, among other criteria, the quality and efficacy of vendors’ processes, systems, methods and procedures that enable their performance to be competitive, efficient and effective.

Options for hybrid and remote work are becoming commonplace across many sectors, from education to healthcare, financial services, and government. Many of the leaders we heard from identified hybrid work as a key driver for moving their phone system to the cloud. 

A cloud phone system enables employees to work from anywhere, on any device. Zoom Phone, part of the Zoom Workspace suite, provides employees with the collaboration tools they need to succeed in a flexible, hybrid work environment.

We’re grateful to our attendees for sharing how organisations in their regions are approaching cloud communications. 

If you’re considering transitioning to a cloud VoIP phone service like Zoom Phone, see how our sales team can help.