What's really in store for Malaysia's IT industry in 2017?

Computerworld Malaysia/ Avanti Kumar

Hitachi Sunway's View

Cheah Kok Hoong, Group CEO / Director of Hitachi Sunway Information Systems, talked first of "the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of the economy in general - with lower oil prices, depreciating currencies, political uncertainties, and an unfavourable global environment; has been a negative impact to the IT spending of most industries especially sectors such as resources, utilities, banking, financial services, and insurance and the public sector."
 
"On the other hand the ICT sector overall are like any other leading edge industry," said Cheah. "The champions have never been one to confirm to sentiment as we see new ideas and innovative technologies break through again and again. Outsourcing continues to present a sensible option to many businesses especially SMEs, MDEC and the government are focused on the Digital Economy and new startups are offering interesting value propositions."
 
"We will see an increase in digital transformation (DX) initiatives using technologies such as mobile, cloud, big data analytics, IoT, AI and robotics," he added. "In these uncertain times, the challenges may either be viewed as a threat or as an opportunity for organisation to consolidate their strengths and leverage on technologies to leap ahead of the competition."
 
"One of the biggest challenges for 2017 will be balancing between investing to stay competitive and at the forefront of leading technologies, versus managing expenses to remain nimble," said Cheah. "Organisations will have to reconsider how things are currently done against the various options available and unexplored. There will be many informed discussions within organisations of on premise versus cloud, buy versus build, in house versus outsource, CAPEX versus OPEX, spend versus save etc."
 
"The ICT sector has a lot of values to contribute to the said discussion and we will definitely see market leaders who are able to capitalise on these opportunities emerge," he said.
 
"ICT is the key catalyst to drive our industry growth and we have to look at improving all aspects of people, process and technology to ensure that we become a high productivity nation," said Cheah. "The challenging year of 2016 makes the overall economic and ICT landscape more competitive, which in turn spurs the market players to innovate and be more efficient."
 
"Opportunities are still abound within Malaysia and ASEAN, and it is our choice on how we want to define 2017. Likewise, Hitachi Sunway are continuing to sensibly grow our businesses in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar," he added.

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