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Hitachi Sunway Information Systems Sdn. Bhd. (“Hitachi Sunway”), a leading ICT Services Integrator in ASEAN, shares that the company will be aligning its entire business operations to the Internet of Things (‘IoT’) trend that has hit Malaysian shores since last year.

According to Hitachi Sunway Group CEO and Director Cheah Kok Hoong, the company has adopted a strategic business direction towards delivering IoT-related projects as IoT has been identified to generate the biggest IT demands by Malaysian companies over the foreseeable future.

Cheah says, “In Malaysia, we see that the IoT trend is strongly influencing the IT demands of conglomerates. 

Traditionally we were a ‘Service Integrator’, but we are now morphing according to the IoT trends to become an ‘IoT solutions aggregator’. To do this, Hitachi Sunway is strengthening its ecosystem of cohesive ‘partnerships’ to meet our clients’ on-going and new IoT projects and plans.” 

Current IoT Projects in Malaysian Conglomerates

At the recent Hitachi Sunway CXO Round Table themed “The Internet of Things (IoT): Turning Vision into Reality”, five (5) prominent Malaysian conglomerates discussed in detail, the on-going and planned IoT projects spanning across local automobile, building materials, entertainment and hospitality, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, plantations and property development sectors.

” IoT means different things to different businesses. Therefore, the only way to be an effective IT partner is to listen on our clients’ IoT plans, and then retrofit the best available technologies to achieve those IoT projects,” says Cheah.

From the discussion, Hitachi Sunway identified the following key guidelines to deliver IoT-ready solutions and services required by enterprise clients: –

1. ECOSYSTEM OF IT PARTNERS: IoT projects cannot rely on single technology brands but need an ‘ecosystem of IT partners’ for delivery and support.
2. SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTISE: IoT requirements are highly dictated by specific industries, hence ‘subject matter expertise’ becomes a much more valued resource than pure IT technologies.
3. CREATIVE COLLABORATION: IoT adoption by Malaysian companies mainly focuses to reduce operational cost, improve resource/ energy management, and customer experience. But future IoT adoption will be to facilitate creative collaborations for new business models, leveraging existing infrastructure.
4. CONNECTIVITY: IoT adoption involves the working together of Big Data/ Analytics, Mobility and Cloud. However, all of these still hinges on the availability of reliable and good Connectivity ie. 5G networks are expected to fulfil this.
5. PEOPLE & PROCESS: IoT adoption will see more focus on ‘People and Processes’ – a factor considered more crucial than the procurement of technology.
6. IoT STANDARDS: IoT (interoperability) standards need to be clearer – it is critical to avoid ‘fragmentation frustration’ especially when it comes to islands of IT infrastructure such as different hardware, software or network that cannot talk to each other. The local IT fraternity requires ‘joint development and discussion’ of IoT standards which are sector-specific.

Cheah says that Hitachi Sunway’s main role is to bring together the best technologies available in the market, and customized hybrid solutions and systems for its clients that operate in a diversity of vertical industries.

 “It is obvious that Malaysian CXOs are looking for IT partners that have a really wide spectrum of skills. 

“IoT overlaps a great deal of both OT (Operational Technology) and IT (Information Technology); so, we will leverage Hitachi’s long and extensive experience in both these areas to deliver IoT solutions to our local enterprise customers.” 

Additionally, we focus on bringing together an ecosystem of ICT solutions (from various technology vendors) and building subject-matter expertise; so that we can support Malaysian enterprise and SMEs in their IoT journey.”

Cheah explains that Hitachi Sunway will establish a form of multi-partnership IT platform (consisting various IoT solutions providers) and act as a ‘consortium of IT expertise’ to deliver the various IoT projects for Malaysian enterprises.  Hitachi Sunway will need to move quickly and definitely in our partnership strategy that aligns to IoT.”

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