IDC Korea predicts 22.6% growth in the domestic cloud professional services market this year.
Reducing the burden of early cloud adoption serves as a growth driver.

According to a recent report published by Korea IDC, an IT market analysis and consulting firm, the domestic Cloud Professional Services market recorded a high growth rate of 20.3% compared to 2013 last year, forming a market size of KRW 161.8 billion as the burden of the initial stage of cloud adoption decreased.

Unlike the overall IT service market, which is maintaining a cautious stance toward new projects this year, the trend of prioritizing the adoption of cloud services is expected to increase. Accordingly, the market is expected to maintain high growth at a rate of 22.6% year-on-year, reaching a market size of KRW 198.4 billion this year.

Expanding Choices with the Emergence of Diverse Cloud Service Offerings

In 2014, the domestic cloud professional services market showed high growth despite the rapid contraction of the project-based market within the overall IT service market. This was due to the increase in cloud adoption for new systems and the increase in workload-based cloud adoption, as the initial burden of cloud adoption decreased based on the spread of awareness of the cloud itself.

? KT announced in June that it would launch the "Ucloud Biz Partner Portal," which supports efficient sales and customer management for "Ucloud Biz" brokerage operators.

Cloud Professional Service refers to a service that helps plan and implement a customer's cloud service strategy, including the introduction of a public cloud, implementation and construction of a private cloud environment, and introduction of a hybrid method. IDC basically provides project-based services. It is defined as IT consulting, system integration, custom application development, network consulting and integration services.

High growth is expected this year, based on the trend of prioritizing cloud adoption.

In 2015, the domestic cloud professional services market is expected to see a surge in adoption of cloud for new systems and system upgrades, driven by a diversification of IT deployment models due to the diversification of cloud offerings, including private, public, hybrid, SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS. This, coupled with the growing demand for cost reduction and rapid development of new business models, is expected to further fuel the adoption of cloud for new systems and system upgrades.

Kim Kyung-min, a senior researcher at IDC Korea, said, “The cloud professional services market is expected to expand into a hybrid environment as various types of IT deployment models are applied.” He added, “Consequently, it is expected that double-digit growth will continue, centered on system integration services, based on the assumption that not only existing on-premise or traditional outsourcing-based services will be converted to the cloud, but also the demand for linkage and integration between different cloud environments will increase.”

Kim continued, “Based on this trend, the domestic cloud professional services market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.8% over the next five years, reaching a market size of KRW 416.7 billion in 2019.”