AIS keen to handle cloud services for local firms
Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) is gearing up to provide cloud services and capitalise on the 10-billion-baht cloud and IT solutions market in Thailand.
“We offer competitive pricing of cloud services to fight with global providers by leveraging our strong network of wireless and fixed broadband, providing end-toend single services,” said Pratthana Leelapanang, acting chief marketing officer of AIS.
Local cloud service providers can serve enterprises who need to keep data in the country as they have to comply with the regulations.
Mr Pratthana said businesses need to modernise their legacy IT infrastructure at lower costs and be more competitive in digital transformation, especially banks and SMEs. Banks and startups will gear towards cloud services.
AIS started to expand to cloud services last year and the company offers end-to-end services from consulting, implementation and managed services to corporations.
AIS resells Microsoft’s cloud-based services, Azure and Office 365, and provides a direct internet link with Microsoft’s data centres in Singapore and Hong Kong. It also offers backup and disaster recovery, security as a service, and database as a service.
“Cloud computing is one of the ingredients for business transformation to lower IT costs and shorten the time to market, enabling businesses to better focus on value creation,” Mr Pratthana said.
AIS offers support through consultancies, planning and operations as well as integrated cloud services known as managed service.
To capitalise on cloud services, AIS has also expanded its data centre in two more locations, Hat Yai and Khon Kaen to better serve customers in the Northeast and the South. The data centre is part of AIS’s 40-billion-baht investment for 2017.
Mr Pratthana said in other countries, solutions for business can be up to 25% of total revenue.
Today’s enterprise solutions contribute only 9% to AIS and thus has lots of room to grow.
McKinsey & Co associate partner Harry Seip said businesses need to initiate the cloud transformation by considering the business impact and make their individual road map strategies.
The cloud programme can help businesses to save 30-40% of costs through automation.
They can start from a small scale and have security ensured at increasing levels along with expansion.
“Migrating the legacy systems to cloud services takes a few years of journey and the business acceleration is unlike normal IT projects,” Mr Seip said.