Industry News: BERNAMA

New department to oversee implementation of Malaysian Personal Data Protection Act 2010

KUALA LUMPUR: A new department is being established under the Information Communication and Culture Ministry to oversee the implementation of the Malaysian Personal Data Protection Act 2010, scheduled to be enforced early next year.

Deputy Minister Datuk Joseph Salang said the new department was targeted to be operational by next year or earlier.

“As you know, to establish the department, we need to do everything right and this will take time,” he told a press conference after the launch of the Information Security Summit 2011, here, yesterday.

He said there was an urgent need for the government to establish personal data protection laws as there were a total of 17 million Internet users in the country.

“More than 58 per cent household broadband penetration is also a factor for drawing up the Malaysian Personal Data Protection Act 2010.

“Prior to the implementation of this Act, personal data is only bound by contractual agreement or common law.” Salang said the implementation of the Act would significantly alter the way personal

data is collected, processed, stored and transmitted between individuals and commercial organisations in Malaysia.

“The givers will be able to dictate how their data is being used by a third party, as well as have clearly defined rights to access and correct their personal data.

“I admit that our digital infrastructure is still in its infancy and years behind the more mature infrastructure of digital goliaths such as the United States.

“But our digital infrastructure has a sound foundation through the establishment of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and is reinforced by the commitment of the government to continually improve and upgrade our system through cooperation and smart partnership with the private sector,” he added.

About 140 participants from the government and private sector, government-linked companies and embassies are attending the two-day Information Security Summit from today.

It addresses the key issues and challenges in information security faced by organisations across the industry, namely to integrate security into an effective IT risk management framework, build a security strategy to manage network security, data protection and leakage, and understanding the implications and guidelines to comply with the Privacy Data Protection Act 2010.

Source: Bernama

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Outsourcing Malaysia Eyes 75 Million In Deals

PETALING JAYA, June 15 (Bernama) -- Outsourcing Malaysia, a chapter of the National ICT Association of Malaysia (PIKOM), expects to conclude RM75 million worth of deals at the Fourth World BPO/ITO Forum Summit to be held in New York beginning June 28.

"About 480 delegates from 34 countries will attend the three-day forum. Malaysia will send the largest team followed by Poland, Egypt and Chile.

"This is the best platform for business-to-business meetings to match Malaysian outsourcing companies and US buyers," said OM Chairman David Wong Nan Fay at a press conference here.

He also said the key point of the mission was to promote Malaysia as a matured destination for outsourcing.

"This is a global forum which is held annually. This time around, our delegates will have an opportunity to attend the forum as well as participate in business matching," he added.

Wong also said Malaysian companies interested to particiate in the summit would enjoy a 50 per cent discount on delegates' pass while arrangements are being made to get the Malaysia External Trade Development Corporation to subsidise flight and accommodation for the participants.

Source: BERNAMA

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Najib Announces Initiatives to Attract Talent

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 6 (Bernama) — Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced new policy initiatives to address the need for world-class talents for Malaysia’s economic transformation.

He said the initiatives included allowing selected Public Services Department scholarship holders to serve their bond outside the civil service.

Another move was the introduction of a resident pass, which accords the holder the long-term right to live and work in Malaysia, he added.

“To achieve the aim of Malaysia to become a world class economy, we have to implement initiatives to attract, develop and retain skilled human capital,” Najib said, when launching Talent Corporation at his office. Also present was Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Najib said the selected PSD scholarship holders could serve their bond of service with a broader range of organisations, including government-linked companies and private sector corporations, especially in NKEAs, the National Key Economic Areas.

The mechanism for this would be developed next year, he said, adding:” We recognise there are many ways to contribute and we are creating opportunities for scholars to do so.”

On the resident pass, Najib said that it would be available to highly skilled expatriates seeking to continue living and working in Malaysia.

Unlike an employment pass, it would not tie the holder to an employer, he said. It could be issued for a longer period and would cover the spouse as well.

“The resident pass will also be offered to the Malaysian diaspora and their offspring who no longer hold Malaysian citizenship. The resident pass is one way to offer them linkage to Malaysia and give them the flexibility to return whether to work or to be with family members,” Najib said.

He said the Immigration Department would be ready to receive applications for resident passes by April 1 next year.

Malaysia, the prime minister said, was open for business and welcomed highly skilled foreign talents who could help to drive its economic transformation.

“For that reason, there will no longer be a requirement to advertise for key expatriate positions,” he added.

Najib said the cabinet had also approved the relaxation of employment pass conditions, involving the lifting of the 10-year limit and mandatory understudy requirement for executive positions.

Najib said that Talent Corporation would collaborate closely with the relevant agencies to coordinate implementation of the policies announced today.

The corporation, which starts operating on Jan 1 next year, will have a board of trustees and be chaired by Najib himself.

The board members will include Ministers in the Prime Minister’s Department Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop and Datuk Seri Idris Jala and Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan. Johan Mahmood Merican will be the Chief Executive Officer of Talent Corporation Malaysia Berhad, Najib said.

The Prime Minister said:”The talent corporation is not just about bringing back Malaysians from abroad, but also about retaining talents in Malaysia.”

Najib said that an estimated 700,000 Malaysians were working abroad, most of them in Singapore and Hong Kong.

He said the company would be acting as intermediary, engaging with the private sector and government-linked companies, to attract Malaysians to come back to work.

“They (the Malaysians) cannot be compelled to register, but Talent Corp will try to locate them and engage them,” he said.

Commenting on the salary that may be the main issue, Najib said:”We have to be globally competitive, otherwise people will not want to come back to Malaysia.”

Source: Bernama

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SUPERCEED launches unified virtual contact centre

KUALA LUMPUR: SUPERCEED (M) Sdn Bhd, a company jointly funded by the Malaysian Government via the Malaysian Technology Development Corporation, Kumpulan Modal Perdana and Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd today launched a novel information technology-based service concept – the Unified Virtual Contact Centre, at the Gardens Hotel & Residences.

The event was officiated by Deputy Finance Minister I, Senator Datuk Donald Lim Siang Chai. Also in attendance were Kumpulan Modal Perdana chief executive officer Shahril Anwar Mohd Yunus; Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd CEO Nazrin Hassan; Malaysian Technology Development Corporation investment director Jamaludin Bujang, and senior management executives from multi-national corporations.

MSC Malaysia’s Shared Services and Outsourcing (SSO) founder, who is also Outsourcing Malaysia founding co-chairman and MDeC Malaysia business and market development director, Rob Cayzer, was present as guest speaker.

“Technology is revolutionising contact centre solutions,” said Jeffrey Tan, CEO of SUPERCEED. “The virtual contact centre model eliminates the need for premise-based contact centre hardware and software, replacing them with on demand internet-based contact centre facilities,” he said.

“This means that companies no longer have to be saddled with high set-up and maintenance costs should they require contact centre services. They can simply sign up for online facilities and pay as they go.”

According to Tan, companies pay monthly subscription fees for the required number of agents or the capacity the business needs and have the flexibility to increase or decrease capacity of interaction volume, which is cost effective for businesses.

“This concept of ‘elasticity’ is attractive for multinational corporations and small to medium enterprises alike,” he said.

He added: “We can deduce the cost savings of VCC easily. The CAPEX for VCC is virtually zero. The typical CAPEX for premise-based contact center hardware and software of RM15,000 per agent. The OPEX for VCC over a 12-month campaign is about 25% of CAPEX for premise-based contact center solutions (based on VCC
entry level pricing). Considering additional OPEX for premise-based contact center solutions, VCC wins hands down.”

The Virtual Contact Centre model is also capable of harnessing the power of a virtual workforce for direct response, sales and marketing, customer service and IT, and operations projects.

“Campaigns are managed using logical groupings of agents,” said Tan.

“We are able to unify and mobilise pools of agents from different geographical regions to serve a campaign which requires deep and diverse skill sets or language requirements.”

“Interaction handling, monitoring and quality assurance is managed via various forecasting and campaign management tools and technologies,” he added.

The unified virtual contact centre also has the potential to grow business models within its current concept.

Every business is an interaction centre. Telcos’ value propositions propogate downwards across existing subscriber base, from corporate, outsourcing companies to SMEs and individual subcribers. The virtual contact centre allows telcos to give birth to secondary business models and utilise them as profit centres, Tan explained.

“An example is telcos offering SMEs and individual subcribers new products or services via creative bundling of internet contact centre solutions, bandwidth and mobility offerings ( 3G, 4G, WIMAX ),” he added.

SUPERCEED’s business partner, Golden Thrive Sdn Bhd, an outsourced BPO company and end customers, Salamfone Sdn Bhd and Baraka Telecom Sdn Bhd were presented with a crystal plaque to signify the completion and handover of their customised virtual contact centre package at the launch.

To date, SUPERCEED has established points of presence in 4 MSC Cybercentres namely SunTech, Cyberjaya, Mid Valley and Menara MSC Cyberport. The company is in the midst of expanding its points-of –presence to Singapore, the Philippines, India, China, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

Source: BERNAMA

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