PETALING JAYA: Over the past year, the increased awareness of the Internet of Things (IoT), e-commerce and cloud computing has prompted many Malaysian businesses to adopt new technological solutions for their day-to-day operations.

Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) is leading the country’s push into the digital domain with its Global Acceleration and Innovation Network (GAIN) program which was launched last year.

The program aims to assist high-potential Malaysian technology companies to grow and expand their reach domestically as well as internationally.

The program focuses on four main pillars – market access, risk capital, tech refresh and visibility. It is aimed to boost the annual revenue of GAIN companies to exceed RM100mil.

Among others, MDEC is recognising Fusionex International, iTalent Management Sdn Bhd and PanPages Bhd as Malaysia’s Tech “Global Icons”.

These companies have demonstrated strong revenue growth and innovative business models, including an aggressive push towards establishing a foothold in the Asean markets.

Fusionex International

Fusionex International is a global, multi-award winning technology market leader specialising in a slew of future market catalysts, namely big data analytics, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, and deep learning.

The data analytics firm’s unique selling point is its ability to enable businesses to turn massive data streams from a liability into an asset, at speed, at scale, and with value.

It is this big push towards the next big thing that has propelled Fusionex into becoming a prominent market innovator.

Its CEO Datuk Seri Ivan Teh said that the firm is poised to capitalise on major trends occurring in the technology space where the physical and digital domains are set for convergence.

“Companies are constantly looking at ways to connect, collect, store, analyse and monetise the data that is being captured. This is the reason why data analytics tools are becoming increasingly important,” he said.

The group’s suite of solutions revolves around a proprietary core called Intelligent Data Management Platform, which is designed from the ground up to be easily configurable and extendable to suit the customer’s needs.

It also offers proprietary software with the provision of maintenance, enhancement, and support, together with expertise in consulting and implementation for its clientele.

According to Teh, Fusionex has long enjoyed a strong relationship with MDEC, adding that the establishment of the GAIN program has become a platform where the firm’s market access has increased and partnership network broadened, both locally and internationally.

“This relationship with MDEC has opened doors for Fusionex to reach out to potential clients in new and existing markets. We are proud to be a part of this program and aim to turn Malaysia into Asean’s big data hub,” he said.

Market research firm Gartner predicts that enterprise data will grow 650% over the next five years with analytics taking the centre stage as the volume of data generated by embedded systems, social media, and other digital platforms increases and vast pools of structured and unstructured data are analysed.

Even though there is still learning curve required in the Big Data industry, organisations are coming to the realisation that they have no choice but to invest and move away from ‘gut feel’ decision making, Teh points out.

Not one to rest on their laurels, Teh adds that there are big plans ahead for Fusionex as it aspires to solidify its position as the region’s top big data analytics player.

“An official launch of an enhanced version of our big data analytics solution, GIANT 2016, is imminent very soon, and we will continuously expand our growing partnership network in the coming year,” he enthuses.

iTalent Management Sdn Bhd

iTalent Management Sdn Bhd is a software vendor which specialises in providing fully integrated cloud based enterprise human resource solutions.

With a presence in Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, iTalent was initially in the payroll outsourcing management business, but soon ventured and evolved into a more integrated human resource (HR) cloud computing solutions provider.

Established in 2008 and headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, iTalent’s CEO and founder Victor Phang says that the company has grown by leaps and bounds over the past eight years as it continues to gain a foothold in the region.

“We are optimistic on the growth of the enterprise solutions industry. Today automation, scalability and utility pricing models are the answers for many corporations to reduce cost while increasing their productivity. We can reduce at least 30% of the HR operation costs, and at the same time these legacy systems are getting more and more costly to maintain,” he explains.

Its HR cloud computing system, dubbed iTalent@sky, uses a fully integrated system which covers the entire spectrum of recruitment, compensation, performance management, and exit strategies.

Another offering is called Performance+, which is a program designed to help managers determine specific key performance indicators (KPIs) for employees.

According to Phang(pic), iTalent’s participation in this MDEC initiative had resulted in an immediate breakthrough. Whereas previously the firm took almost a year to penetrate the foreign market,

“This initiative has been extremely helpful and important for local firms like iTalent for accessing international contacts and eventually could help us to export our solutions globally” he says. Through their participation in the recent Indonesia and Silicon Valley immersions by MDEC, iTalent has been able to establish themselves in these new market presence.

In spite of the challenging market environment currently, Phang is confident of the growth opportunities at hand as more and more corporations pivot towards adopting a broad-based and modernised HR solutions.

“Despite the unfavorable sentiment right now, over the next three years I think enterprises will continue to invest in new technology that is able to provide real-time analytics which are crucial for speedy decision making to stay ahead of the competition,” he opines.

Phang says that there will be more to come from iTalent as the company explores new markets.

“We plan to allocate more investment to train the second level of management to strengthen the internal leadership. At the same time, we will focus on the ongoing market expansion to Thailand, Australia and the Philippine markets by the end of 2017 with a target of 150,000 subscribers for the iTalent Digital HR system,” he says.

iTalent was recognised at the 2015 Malaysian Asia Pacific ICT Awards in the Best of Applications and Infrastructure Tools (Merit) and won the BPO Project of the Year at the 2014 and 2015 Outsourcing Malaysia Excellence Awards.

PanPages Bhd

PanPages Bhd is a Bursa Malaysia-listed company specialising in the areas of marketing and data services. The company’s business segments consist of online business platforms, print directories and content licensing.

Founded in 1989 and having been listed on the local bourse for the past decade, the company has a long and colourful history as one of the region’s pioneers in the burgeoning small medium enterprise (SME) marketing solutions industry.

The company provides multi-channel solutions which allow their customers to advertise in PanPages.com, its Asean business platform, as well as on Google AdWords, Facebook, YouTube, Google Map, Alibaba.com and Print Directories Malaysia Super Pages.

“PanPages provides marketing and database service solutions to the Asean business communities. Our main strength is the 10 million businesses in our database around the region. We are also capitalising on the growth in digital marketing and big data in Asean,” said the company’s group chief executive officer Fong Wai Leong.

The company provides two main types of services. The first one is called marketing-as-a-service, whereby PanPages would help its customers to publish business content on a number of platforms such as Malaysia Super Pages, print directories, Alibaba.com’s global trade portal and other business sites.

The second offering is called data-as-a-service, where the company provides location based services such as data mapping or point of interest (POI) tagging for SMEs. Additionally, it also does marketing leads for SMEs who are keen in acquiring lead generation services through email blasting, SMS blasting, direct mailing and telemarketing.

Fong(pic) further explains that PanPages operates in a niche market where it has the advantage due to its multi-decade presence in the region and extensive customer database.

The company connects SME businesses, which tend to comprise of ‘mom and pop’ shops that are lacking in terms of online presence and marketing skills, to businesses or consumers on the web.

PanPages would then include these businesses into its database and help them reach out to a wider audience.

As the company is always evolving and developing new solutions for the SME market, Fong says that the industry will continue to grow at a fast clip in the coming year.

“PanPages feel the outlook for SME in Asean is good for 2017. SMEs will adopt new accessible technology and digital strategies to compete in the business arena and widen their market footprint,” he says.

“PanPages will focus on serving the Asean SME community by providing platforms and solutions for them to connect. We will leverage on their large database and Asean reach while partnering with global technology providers,” he adds.