Information and Communication Technology Sector

• In its aim to become a developed nation by 2025, the Government of Malaysia has identified key digital areas to drive the ICT sector (Information and communications technology) that includes cloud, internet of things (IoT), data analytics, cybersecurity, data center, e-commerce and artificial Intelligence (AI) as the main drivers for Industry 4.0 and Smart City development.

• In Malaysia, Cloud computing is experiencing investment in data centers and ICT infrastructure.

• As far as the specific sub-segments are are concerned, Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has the highest adoption in cloud computing, followed by Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

• Also, Hybrid Clouds remain the dominant form of deployment by enterprises in Malaysia and this model has been identified by service providers as a key growth market.

• According to the Malaysia financial sector cloud adoption report by the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), 64.7% of the country’s financial services companies said they are developing a cloud strategy, while 17.6% already have one. The remaining 17.6% have a strict no-cloud policy.

Public Sector

• Implementation of cloud-based services and resources by the Malaysian public sector falls under moderate level.

• The cloud computing features that are compatible with all aspects of IT services in the Malaysian public sector lead to a higher level of implementation among the agencies.

• Most agencies in the Malaysian public sector also found that cloud computing services are completely compatible with the current IT system in their department, thus influencing cloud computing implementation.

Adoption Barriers:

• 23.5% of surveyed respondents in the Malaysian Finance sector mentioned that no cloud service data security and compliance regulations have been established in their organisations.

• Just 11.7% of organisations have some form of cloud service data security and compliance management.

• The lack of security leadership also appears to be a key issue in Malaysia’s financial sector, with 52.9% of respondents citing it as the top barrier to cloud adoption in their organisations.

• Perceived risks were hypothesized to have a negative influence or barrier factors on the implementation of cloud-based services in the Malaysian public sector.

• A significant support was found for the relationship between perceived risks as a barrier factor on the implementation of cloud computing services and resources by the Malaysian public sector.

• It was also argued that the agencies believed that the risks of cloud computing may affect their implementation of the cloud environment, especially the public cloud, agency’s data required a more secure environment for storage and retrieval.