(source: New Straits Times, Outlook)

For a company that has spanned 36 years in the industry, Computer Systems Advisers (M) Bhd continues to grow from strength to strength. It has now built its reputation in providing cutting-edge information and communications technology (ICT) and outsourcing services to a global clientele.

Its rich experience and specialty in providing services such as call centre, data centre and real-time network monitoring services will take centrestage at the 16th World Congress of Information Technology (WCIT 2008) in Kuala Lumpur next May.

Having attended earlier WCIT editions as a delegate, CSA's managing director Chuah Tai Eu understands the impact of taking part in WCIT 2008.

"It's a valuable opportunity to share with delegates about CSA's global capability and local delivery skills, which have helped our clients improve their business performance," Chuah said.

"We are excited to exchange ideas and meet new people. We want to show our presence and share success stories with reinforce our credibility and stature. More importantly we want to build rapport with foreign business leaders, user communities and governments."

These aims reflect CSA's aggressive intent to capitalise on its earlier success as an ICT service exporter to the global marketplace. It grossed revenue of RM434 for its financial year ended March 31, 2007, a seven per cent increase from RM405.4 million in the previous financial year.

As one of the pioneers in Malaysia's ICT industry since 1971, CSA has evolved to become a towering regional ICT services leader. It serves clients in over 16 countries, including Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

It has also recruited native-speaking personnel from these countries to join its 1,100-strong workforce of technical consultants, problem solvers, subject matter experts and communication specialists.

“For example, our team handling call centre management and helpdesk services include trained personnel who speak Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Malaysia, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin and Thai, in addition to English. They can converse and solve problems in the caller’s native language,” Chuah said, adding that such ability has an immediate global appeal.

“We serve clients have offices in many countries. Calls requesting for technical support or help from those countries are routed here to our personnel. When callers hear our personnel converse in their language, solving problems become easier and faster,” he explained.

“Our state-of-the-art call centre is equipped with live news broadcasts, weather and natural disaster alerts. It enables the call centre to have a pulse on the world. For example, we were aware of the earthquake after it struck southern Taiwan last December. We were then able to pre-empt the type of problems which we would have to resolve for our clients there. We were also able to continue receiving and responding to calls from the rest of the world, even though public telephone and internet services across eastern Asia were disrupted,” he said.

Chuah also credited Malaysia’s first rate communications, transport and electrical power infrastructure for this ability.

CSA has also paved the way to become the first line of monitoring for many critical infrastructure and networks worldwide.

“Our NMVC (Network Management Visualisation Centre) is manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We provide remote network monitoring, management and support for many clients. There are clients whose networks are many miles below ground level, which are monitored by our NMVC. We can instantly alert the local crew about the condition of a critical infrastructural or network component and pre-empt its failure,” Chuah said.

“Our country has many appealing strengths to become a preferred global ICT outsourcing destination. These include a multi-lingual worksforce, reliable infrastructure and geographical stability. With our participation focusing on CSA’s global capabilities, we hope it stamps a deeper and favourable impression on delegates and visitors at next year’s WCIT.”

CSA is a WCIT 2008 Silver Partner and counts itself as among the earliest among local ICT companies to step up and lead in supporting the event to promote Malaysia’s ICT capabilities to the rest of the world.