Organizations are using collaboration and security tools with a vengeance, as they accelerate the transition to the cloud, according to a new report.
Identity provider Okta announced the findings of its eighth annual report on Business at Work. The research explores what applications and services organizations in Asia Pacific and around the world use to stay productive and secure.
Businesses at Work 2022 looks at Okta’s network of 14,000 global customers and more than 7,000 cloud, mobile and web app integrations, and IT infrastructure providers to better understand the apps and services that drive work by 2021. Top apps of the year include a combination of productivity suites, security solutions, and scheduling software.
“The ballooning infrastructure costs, rising cyberattacks, growing customer expectations for tailored digital experiences, and the increasingly dynamic workforce that will accelerate digital transformation in 2021,” said Graham Sowden, Okta general manager for APAC.
“As our relationship with technology deepens, the role of identity in providing seamless access between people and technology has become critical,” he said.
IDC predicts that by the end of 2022, half of Asia Pacific’s economy will be based on, or influenced by, digital technologies.
Worldwide, collaboration and security tools are the two most popular categories of tools deployed by the Okta Integration Network, showing 28% and 31% year-over-year growth respectively.
The power trio Google Workspace, Zoom, and Slack has won a large number of new customers across APAC. Google Workspace grew 68% YoY in terms of the number of customers in the region, while Slack and Zoom grew 40% and 37%, respectively.
Also specifically in APAC, Palo Alto Networks GlobalProtect network security tool, ServiceNow workflow platform, Mimecast email security tool, and small business accounting software Xero are the most popular with customers.
Worldwide, collaboration tools such as Notion, Figma, Miro, Airtable and monday.com have seen an increase in customers throughout the year, in tandem with an increase in remote working.
Compared to previous years ’report, 70% of the fastest growing apps are new in the top 10. Clearly, the rapid move to remote work has pushed companies to use new technologies to stay connected, secure and productive. their workers.
“Remote work has made content collaboration tools extremely important for corporations during a pandemic,” Sowden said.
“In particular, we see that videos and conferences continue to connect people in a distant world, especially in APAC, where employers are arming their employees with collaboration platforms such as of Zoom. “
Ricky Kapur, APAC head at Zoom, added, “We are proud to be recognized as one of APAC’s most used productivity applications and services.
“Zoom continues to innovate with our diverse ecosystem of partners, including Okta, to provide organizations with solutions that empower their hybrid workers,” he said.
“With employees wanting more flexibility in where and how they work, we are committed to driving safe and seamless collaboration for employee engagement and overall company success.”
The ability to access workflows and productivity tools from any location, on any device has become a business necessity. In fact, cloud migration is not only increasing, it is doubling, and complicating, where organizations are choosing to use multiple cloud platforms instead of putting all of their cloud computing in one virtual basket.
AWS remains the world’s favorite cloud platform, showing 32% YoY growth last year and contributing to the overall increase of 152% since 2018. Meanwhile, Google Cloud Platform (GCP) boasts a 40% increase since 2020, a whopping 365 % from where it ranked in 2018.
The report found that companies are also continuing to invest in security -related applications, of which Netskope (a network security tool) is now the fastest growing app in the world in terms of the number of unique users and the VMware’s Workspace ONE (an endpoint management tool) remains high on the list.
In addition, businesses are increasingly moving to higher security and adaptive authentication methods such as Okta Verify and WebAuthn to secure access to applications. Worldwide, SMS as a security factor has dropped from 53% three years ago to 47% today, while security questions have dropped 18% three years ago to 13% today.
Research suggests that even as organizations increasingly license productivity suites, they still want to invest in best -breed apps that reflect some of the apps licensed under the bundle.
Of Okta’s Microsoft 365 (the most popular app) customers worldwide, 33% deploy four or more best-of-breed apps, up from 20% four years ago, which featured the growing importance of flexibility and functionality as employees work remotely. Some 38% are also deploying Google Workspace, the third most popular app this year by number of customers. Another 43% use AWS, the second most popular app.
“This year’s report clearly shows that organizations around the world lean heavily on two areas: choice and collaboration,” Sowden said.
“This is a smart move and Okta is excited to support some of the largest and most complex businesses in APAC as they change their technology strategies.”
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