In today’s world, accessing multiple markets is practically a must for cloud communications providers aiming to grow their businesses and make their platform region-agnostic. One of the most lucrative areas for providers to expand into is APAC, where some of top-GDP countries are located. However, no one ever said scaling one’s business globally was easy – expanding into APAC is quite the challenging undertaking, due to each country having a unique set of requirements.
The two main focus areas that should be considered by cloud comms providers entering APAC are regulations and connectivity, which, if not handled properly, can cause a fair share of hassle and costs.
I chatted with Monnan Miah, Head of Global Services at Toku, to learn more about challenges, recommended practices, and how partnering with the right local telco provider can help optimize performance and reduce costs in the region.
The Regulatory Aspect
“When it comes to regulations in APAC, there are two main aspects to consider: licensing, and data protection,” Miah explains.
When it comes to licensing, it’s important to partner with a local telco provider with cross-regional knowledge and expertise, as well languages and culture proficiency, who’s well-versed in the relevant laws and can instruct external cloud comms providers on how to operate locally.
“As a local telco working across 17 different APAC markets, we use that in-depth understanding as part of new clients’ onboarding process, easing their workload by guiding them to the exact laws and practices they need to be aware of,” he shares.
This allows cloud providers to quickly enter a local market, without having to spend large amounts of money engaging with local legal firms to navigate the licensing bit.
“It’s more than just looking at licenses,” Miah adds. “It’s also important to work with a telco that understands where the customer’s application stack sits within the telecoms environment in an APAC market.”
And what about the data protection bit?
Well, APAC doesn’t spare cloud communications providers there, either. In fact, pretty much every APAC country has its own specific data protection regulations, which can follow GDPR guidelines, EU guidelines, or neither. Confused? Well, you’re not the only ones.
“Data protection is ever-changing in the Asian market, not just in terms of the various laws themselves, but also in terms of the business processes. There are various aspects to consider, and each market has different goes by different rules,” Miah says.
We’re talking about all the typical processes relating to data protection such as data sharing, removal of data, storage of data, and minimum durations held of data. Having to learn and implement those in the various markets takes up plenty of time and resources from cloud providers’ product teams, which ideally should be invested in delivering value to customers.
Here, too, Miah recommends working with a local telco provider to assist and reduce costs.
“At Toku, we take care of that aspect by offering platform-ready tools to provide our customers with all the necessary information about data protection processes, so they can onward-enable their platforms,” Miah shares.
The Connectivity Aspect
Connectivity used to be a physical and security conversation, but in the cloud environment, it’s become more of a capacity and scalability conversation.
“Of course, it’s important to have a telco provider who has all the necessary physical infrastructure to connect your platform to the local network, but being able to properly assess growth upon entering a new market is no less important,” Miah explains.
“I’ve seen customers wish to enter local markets without knowing what the average usage is, or what the consumer dynamics are within the market. This often leads to inaccurate scaling.”
By working with a local telco with hands-on experience in APAC markets, cloud communications providers can get access to network recommendations, allowing them to reliably forecast their required cloud platform capacity.
“It’s also important to work with a telco provider allowing a dynamic, cost-effective scalability of that capacity as it changes.”
How Can Toku Help?
With rich expertise and PSTN replacement capability in 17 different APAC countries, Toku works closely with cloud communications providers to provide them with everything they need to operate in the region smoothly and cost-effectively.
To learn more about Toku’s solutions, visit here.
