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Basis Bay on acquisition trail and pursuing a Green IT Holistic Approach branding

LANGKAWI, AUGUST
Basis Bay, a Malaysian-owned regional group that has carved a niche for itself helping companies take a green approach to information technology (IT), is mulling acquisitions to ramp up its growth.

Founder and chief executive officer Datuk Praba Thiagarajah said the 15-year-old group, which has been "profitable from day one", has been looking for the right target to buy, both at home and abroad.

This will be its growth strategy over the near term, he said, dismissing talk of an initial public offering for now.

"M&As (mergers and acquisitions) and partnerships, that's the way we want to grow. In the next half-to-one year, we'll be pushing that strategy," Thiagarajah told Business Times in an interview here recently.

The group has already initiated discussions with several potential companies that could complement its businesses, and hopes to ink a deal with at least one within a year from now.

"We dont need to acquire 100 per cent of a company. It could be just a stake, but we'd like it to be a controlling position," he said.

The Basis Bay group has two key businesses - providing green IT outsourcing services and solutions to companies, and building and managing green data centres.

Thiagarajah noted that many companies still do not realise the full value of adopting green technology. It is beneficial in that it not only helps minimise the environmental impact, but also reduces a company's cost and ensures sustainability, he said.

"By not fundamentally understanding and addressing the need to implement green solutions in every environment within the IT infrastructure, from servers to storage to data centres, many chief information officers (CIO) overlook the green advantages and values they can realise," he remarked.

Some of the holistic factors every CIO should consider include the smart procurement and provisioning of servers, extending the life cycle of hardware and equipment as well as the optimisation of IT infrastructure.

On procurement, for example, he said companies could opt for pre-owned computer hardware. Computer hardware is, after all, extremely depreciative and loses its value long before the end of its functional life.

"There are various obvious benefits of pre-owned equipment. Pre-owned Enterprise-Class ICT (information and communications technology) equipment can usually be purchased at a much lower price compared to a brand new similar or equivalent model, thus reducing capital expenditure," he said.

This, he added, would be among the things that could help companies out there address the "triple bottom line of people, planet and profit".

Thiagarajah, who has some 20 years of experience in the premium IT segment, is the major shareholder of Basis Bay.

In 1999, one of the entities within the group was able to show a net profit of "more than RM6 million", and last year, several companies posted "more than double-digit net profit, in the millions", he said, declining to elaborate.

Source: www.btimes.com.my

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