Valuable sharing sessions: Prateek (right) together with (from left) James Zhang, Noorzita, Teo and Chuah at the Maxis Business Engage event in Kuala Lumpur. Photos by MUHAMAD SHAHRIL ROSLI, CHAN BOON KAI and K.T.GOH/The Star
Digital transformation has become essential for businesses to stay competitive and meet shifting market demands. Recognising this, Maxis Bhd (Maxis) organised its “Maxis Business Engage” forums to empower business leaders with insights into reinventing their operations through digitalisation.
Hosted by Maxis Business, the company’s B2B arm, the forums in Kuala Lumpur and Penang showcased how advanced connectivity and cutting-edge technologies can unlock unprecedented opportunities across industries. Leveraging Maxis’ expertise as Malaysia’s leading integrated telco, the events highlighted how digitalisation can enable businesses to transform operations and automate processes for greater efficiency, scalability, and responsiveness. The first event took place at Element Kuala Lumpur and featured prominent speakers, such as entrepreneur Hernan Corporation Sdn Bhd founder and group chief executive officer Datuk Anna Teo who spoke about her company’s adoption of robotic automation and artificial intelligence (AI) for the purpose of durian grading, sorting and segment scanning.
In Penang, Prateek is joined by (from left) Maillefer, Tan, and Wan Hashimah.
Echoing Teo in a discussion were a panel of speakers - moderated by Maxis chief enterprise business officer Prateek Pashine - who offered their views on how mid-tier companies, especially in manufacturing and logistics, have benefitted through automation and the adoption of smart assets.
“Before starting on a digital transformation journey, companies need to identify problems in their processes and then systematically fix them,” said Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) business services and regional operations division director Noorzita Mohamad Nor. She stressed that leadership plays a vital role in inspiring those to embark on this journey.
Tiong Nam Logistics IT director Chuah Koon Jin said that while changes are needed when conducting digital transformations, it is also important to properly define them.
Wan Amir-Jeffery providing the company’s background as well as their experience in shifting towards automation in manufacturing.
“We need to define them within the context of the organisation, align with the company’s stakeholders and outline what the new ‘roadmap’ looks to achieve,” he said, adding that a quantifiable key performance index (KPI) should be implemented.Meanwhile, chief marketing officer for ICT Marketing & Solutions Sales of Huawei APAC, James Zhang said that businesses can be more successful in their digital transformation by placing the focus on the needs of customers instead as that will help identify the appropriate technology to adopt.
“Do not just focus on keeping up with the pace of new technologies but also foster the culture of adaptability while increasing the essential skills of employees.”
Prateek also emphasised that successful digital transformation begins with leadership. He highlighted the importance of “reverse mentoring,” where younger, tech-savvy employees can guide leaders in understanding digital tools and strategies.
“The younger generation is often more in tune with technology, and by learning from them, leaders can become more digitally savvy,” he explained, further pointing out that it is essential to nurture young talent, particularly in fields like cybersecurity and AI, where there’s a significant talent gap.
Supporting digitalisation journeys
In similar fashion, more than 100 business owners attended the event in Eastern and Oriental Hotel, Penang to hear industry experts share insights on strengthening supply chains, reducing labour costs, and boosting productivity through technology. Pharmaceutical company Duopharma Biotech Bhd was among success stories heard. Its chief executive officer (commercial) Wan Amir-Jeffery Wan Abdul Majid shared that Duopharma’s digital blueprint is structured around four key pillars: enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, manufacturing automation, real-time tracking, as well as data analytics and business intelligence.“Operating in a highly regulated industry, meeting compliance standards is paramount. Our shift toward automation in manufacturing has helped reduce manual labour-related inconsistencies and improve quality.“Though it requires a significant initial investment, it minimises wastage and human error, reduces inaccuracy, stock returns, complaints and repetitions,” he said.
Participants were engaged by the insightful discussions, and also took the opportunity to network with the panellists.
The company recently invested in cartoning machines and upgraded older machines to integrate with digital systems. Investments were also made in warehousing, delivery, and customer relationship management (CRM) to ensure on-time delivery and enable product tracking.
MIDA manufacturing development (non-resource) executive director Wan Hashimah Wan Salleh pointed out that while large corporations have more resources to adopt digitalisation, SMEs may struggle with this transition.“Large corporations are easy to adapt to digitalisation but it is still a challenge to convince small and medium enterprises (SMEs) who have existed for a long time.
“We need to inform them of the available government support and incentives, like the Automation Capital Allowance introduced in Budget 2015, offering up to RM10mil to encourage automation in the manufacturing and services sectors,” she said.
Other speakers at the event include ABB Malaysia vice president Laurent Maillefer who shared Industry 4.0 challenges in Malaysia and the contrasting needs of large corporations versus SMEs.
Aqina Farm business development and marketing head Eileen Tan, whose operations are shifting towards Agriculture 4.0, shared how the farm uses AI in pineapple and poultry farming.
Participants learning more about Maxis’ cloud-based solution for businesses which enables faster insights and decision-making.
Echoing Wan Hashimah, Prateek added that for small businesses without in-house expertise, the digital journey can be daunting. “It’s essential they avoid costly mistakes and connect with peers and reliable partners for guidance.”
As such, Maxis has come up with over 80 partners in various domains to lend a helping hand.
“With Maxis, we help businesses create a digital roadmap with solutions tailored to their needs, backed by our growing network of over 80 partners in the fields of robotics, mixed reality, IoT, autonomous guided vehicles, hyperscalers, specific industry-focused platform providers, industry and research bodies, and startups – all under the Maxis 5G Alliance programme,” he concluded.To support these new technologies, Maxis Business recently became the first telco in Malaysia to introduce GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS) - a cloud-based solution.
GPUaaS allows companies to access powerful computing resources without investing in expensive hardware. It enhances performance for data analytics, AI workloads, and complex simulations, enabling faster insights and decision-making.
Through its end-to-end capabilities and industry engagement, Maxis Business will continue to help businesses to digitalise through future-ready digital and connectivity solutions.
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