Legal, risk and compliance leaders need to embrace a new mindset to facilitate digital transformation
Hong Kong, 9 May 2017 – Microsoft and Linklaters today released findings from a new IDC study, “Advising to Innovate – Views from the Asia Pacific Legal, Risk and Compliance Communities”. The study found that 18.9% of legal, risk and compliance professionals in Hong Kong view cloud applications and platforms as being more trustworthy than on-premise solutions because of better security and other reasons. It also revealed 32.1% see no difference between the two, however 49.1% take a more conventional perception and still trust on-premise IT solutions more.
Andrew Cooke, Regional Director of Legal Affairs, Microsoft Asia Pacific & Japan, said: “The reality is that cloud service providers have fast become the subject matter experts as it relates to delivering world-class, highly secure and compliant IT solutions. Both Microsoft and Linklaters felt it was time to gain a deeper understanding of the views of the region’s legal, risk and compliance community in relation to new and emerging technologies like cloud. This will allow us to respond to those concerns and work with this community to enable them to advise in a way that would help accelerate their organisations’ digital transformation without compromising on legal, regulatory or risk compliance. The desire to understand the community better led to the creation of this report, which is a first-of-its-kind collaboration between one of the world’s leading technology companies and one of the most recognised international law firms globally.”
Cloud in a Digital Age
The important role that technologies like cloud play in the digital transformation journey of organizations has driven strong adoption of cloud services in Asia Pacific. In this new digital world, cloud computing will be the foundation on which organizations of all sizes will create their digital future.
This IDC study commissioned by Microsoft and Linklaters aims to find out more about the legal, risk and compliance communities’ attitude towards the usage of cloud and understand how this communities’ views can impact the adoption of cloud services in both a positive and negative way. Legal, risk and compliance professionals from 479 companies with more than 500 staff were surveyed, including 53 companies from Hong Kong.
The study confirms that public cloud usage is increasing right across the globe and that includes here in Hong Kong. 56.6% of the respondents said that their organizations are already using cloud applications or platforms. In fact, 87% of the respondents said that their organizations are expected to moderately or significantly increase cloud usage in the next two years.
Legal, Risk & Compliance Professionals are more Influential in Cloud Adoption than IT Professionals
The study found that the legal, risk and compliance professionals already wield considerable influence on enterprises’ cloud decisions, with in-house lawyers ranked as the top influencers when it comes to giving the greenlight to cloud deployments. This is followed by regulators and external lawyers in HK.
Adrian Fisher, Technology, Media & Communications Counsel, Linklaters Singapore, said: “Digital transformation provides the catalyst for legal, risk and compliance professionals to redefine their roles and bolster their ability to positively influence cloud decisions. By arming themselves with the latest knowledge on technological advancements and taking on a more proactive role to address regulatory issues, there is a clear and previously unrecognized opportunity for the legal, risk and compliance community to become enablers of digital transformation and help shape the wave of innovation that is sweeping across all industries.”
Security and Regulator’s Support as Top Concern
Organizations are increasingly hosting critical applications and data in the cloud. The security of data hosted on cloud platforms, and whether that data will be vulnerable to attacks is a high priority concern, represented by 64% of responses in the study.
Besides security concerns, the study also found that the legal, risk and compliance community has mixed attitudes towards the regulators and regulations. 60% in HK felt that regulators in Hong Kong are supporting the deployment of email and messaging services on cloud platforms. 53% felt that regulators are supporting the hosting of highly-regulated data on cloud platforms. Whilst encouraging, these statistics also demonstrate that large percentages of the legal, risk and compliance communities are still unsure of what the regulations permit or what the regulators are thinking.
The study revealed that the three most important regulatory or compliance issues in choosing a cloud service provider are: a cloud providers’ willingness or ability to resist Government requests for data; compliance with data protection laws specific to country or industry; and the ability for cloud providers to supply advice and information on how to achieve regulatory, legal and risk compliance.
Andrew Cooke shared “The consensus from the legal, risk and compliance community is that regulators are supportive of cloud adoption and innovation, but the regulations themselves can still be a little unclear. For organizations to become truly digital, the full suite of the legal, risk and compliance professionals will need to collaborate and engage with the community as well as regulators. Operating in silos or independently will bring only limited results.”
Adrian Fisher added: “By partnering with Microsoft, we have taken a unique step in collaborating ‘across the divide’ of legal versus solution provider to really focus on the issues at hand and bring some concrete understanding from which we can develop clear action points for the future agenda. We are delighted to be teaming up and tailoring programs – including a series of seminars and workshops – for this community. Our goal is to help them stay abreast of all the latest cloud developments, especially in terms of security, and help them navigate the complex regulatory landscapes across different countries and sectors.”
About Microsoft
Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.
About Linklaters
Linklaters is a leading global law firm supporting clients in achieving their strategies wherever they need to do business. We desire to work with our clients to understand the issues they need solving and then look to provide solutions tailored to them. We encourage a culture of innovation and collaboration and are constantly looking to the future to offer the best possible service to our clients and the development of our people. We believe in doing things differently – unleashing our imagination to challenge the present and shape the future.
For more information, please contact:
Microsoft Hong Kong Limited
Alice Li
Tel: +852 2804 4130
Email: [email protected]
Hill+Knowlton Strategies for Microsoft
Raymond Woo / Nicole Chan
Tel: +852 2894 6355 / Tel: +852 2894 6207
Email: [email protected] /[email protected]
