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Informatica has streamlined its Asia-Pacific operations to better meet the growing demand for cloud-based data management platforms in the region.

In 2020, the software supplier decided to concentrate its staff and operations across the region in the key markets of Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney, and Tokyo, according to its vice-president and general manager for Asia-Pacific and Japan, Tony Frey.

Frey described the move, which came into full force in the third quarter last year, as a big change that would enable Informatica to scale to the next level. As a company, were not as big as Microsoft and for us to scale and continue to put Informatica staff into markets like Thailand and Vietnam was just not the right model, he added.

In those developing markets, including the Philippines and Indonesia, where Informatica no longer has direct operations, Frey said the company will rely on local distributors and partners such as Deloitte and Accenture to fulfil market demand. The new go-to-market strategy appears to be working, going by the companys recent growth and business projections.

Our business has grown year-over-year for two to three consecutive years in the market, said Frey. Specifically, weve grown the annual recurring revenue of our cloud business by over 40% from 2019 to 2020, and we're expecting over 40% growth in 2021 over 2020.

The company has over 2,000 Asia-Pacific customers who rely on its data management platform in areas such as data integration, data quality, data governance and master data management, among others. Data integration and data quality are often cited as the top two challenges that enterprises face with data management.

Informatica has come a long way since its early days as a supplier of on-premise extract, transform, load (ETL) tools to move data from its source to a data storage system, typically a data warehouse. It is now focused on delivering cloud-based offerings as more enterprise store and process data using public cloud services.

Frey said that for the past few years, Informatica has not only ported but rebuilt its software into cloud-native services running on Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud through partnerships with hyperscale cloud suppliers.

In a region where cloud adoption varies across countries, Frey singled out Australia as a key market which has the keenest users of cloud-based data management tools, followed by Singapore.

For those that are behind the curve, Frey said while there is pressure on companies to move to the cloud, it will not happen overnight.

Weve got to be prepared to set up our business so that we can catch the customer when they're ready to do it, he added. We can encourage them and show them a roadmap as to how to do it.

For example, through Informaticas new Intelligent Data Management Cloud platform that facilities data management processes from data ingestion to lifting and shifting data, Frey said enterprises will find it easier to navigate the challenges of managing data on the cloud.

That's a big part of what we're doing in certain markets to educate customers in a predictable and streamlined manner on how they can start that process, he added.

Meanwhile, enterprises that want to keep using on-premise software can do so through a software maintenance programme for existing Informatica customers who will continue to receive support for their investments, Frey said, adding, however, that there will be new products that will only be available through the cloud.

Frey acknowledged the competition in the data management landscape, which is dotted with players ranging from storage suppliers to backup and recovery software companies, adding that Informatica differentiates itself through its track record and laser focus on data management.

Weve been working in this area for 25 straight years, and we have only worked in this area, he said. So, everything that we do is 100% core to data management, whether that be ingestion, data integration or master data management.

Were not a storage company, were not a data warehouse and were sticking with the rules that we've always played, which is how do you make the most out of data once it gets to where it needs to go?

We create integration across different silos of data that exists in companies, which will continue to operate in a hybrid world where a lot of systems are still going to reside on-premise while others will go to the cloud when it makes sense, said Frey.

Those are extremely complex problems and theyre at the core of driving value in these companies.

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Informatica streamlines APAC operations amid growing cloud business - ComputerWeekly.com