Cloud services might have a global market, but it's often best served local, as cloud providers are finding out. Given the need to have a more widespread presence in fast-growing and emerging markets, UK-based ControlCircle (news, site) is expanding in the Asia Pacific region with an office in Singapore.

ControlCircle has announced that it will open its APAC operations center in downtown Singapore, where the company will run its marketing, sales and support activities across the region. APAC has been cited as among the fastest-growing markets for cloud services worldwide, and ControlCircle intends to run its Singapore office as its international hub for providing cloud computing and virtualization technology to its clients.

Local Partnerships, Global Standards

While ControlCircle's APAC office is run as a wholly-owned operations center, the company expects local partners to aid in its expansion and marketing efforts. ControlCenter's APAC operations will be hosted by Global Switch from Singapore. ControlCircle CEO Damian Milkins commented on the advantage of bringing its operations closer to its target clients.

The opening of our first Asia-Pacific facility, conveniently situated in Singapore's down town district, offers more flexibility and proximity to all customers across Asia Pacific... Not only will it enable us to better listen to and serve the APAC market needs, it will also allow us to work closely with local partners as part of ControlCircle's global outsourcing delivery model."

Meanwhile, APAC general manager Stephen Harrison expressed that the regional team will hold to the same business approach and standards as its US and UK operations.

This move coincides with an upsurge in the global demand for cloud computing and cloud services among enterprises and we have tasked ourselves with several priorities in the coming twelve months from supporting the continued expansion of our presence in the region, to preparing our product suite for entrance into new markets, he said.

Global Expansion

ControlCircle's APAC office in Singapore is just its first step in ensuring a wider reach worldwide. The company says it will open another APAC office soon after in Sydney, Australia, which will serve as a secondary office in the region. Launching in March 2011, the Australia office is expected to bring ControlCircle's services nearer to clients down under.

The Asia Pacific market for cloud services is valued at US$ 1.3 billion in 2010 (excluding Japan) and is forecast to have an annual compound growth of 40% through 2014. While cloud computing is on the rise among enterprise users, stakeholders have expressed concerns with privacy, security and legal frameworks. With these concerns, cloud providers will greatly benefit from infrastructure being set up locally, especially given security and privacy issues from data being physically stored or located offshore.