Malaysia attractive IT outsourcing centre: CompTIA

INTERNATIONAL consulting firm A.T. Kearney’s recognition of Malaysia as the world’s third most attractive offshore location is opening doors towards the country’s information technology (IT) centre, Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) director of public policy Asia Pacific Michael Mudd said.

CompTIA is a global trade association representing the business interests of the IT industry.

“Malaysia has an advantage over other countries in the region with its ready pool of knowledge workers that are proficient in English.

Mudd said knowledge workers are crucial for Malaysia to be competitive in outsourcing and the key to any business success is the quality of workers and companies want to know that the productivity of knowledge workers can match investment.

Mudd said the most valuable assets of a company are their workers and productivity.

“More than 90 per cent of all workers in the IT field do not work for companies in the IT industry. Rather, they fulfil IT functions in other industries, for example the hotel, bank and airlines industries,” he said.

Mudd said IT provides the backbone that powers the global economy in financial services, government, agriculture, healthcare, transportation, manufacturing, education, and scores of other industries.

Mudd said CompTIA is working with Malaysia on developing knowledge workers through broad-based, foundation exams that validate an individual’s IT skills set.

“As the largest vendor-neutral provider of IT training certificates, we are working with the National Vocational Training Council to map the syllabus to the Malaysian National Competency Skill Standards,” he said.

He also said that CompTIA’s opinion on Malaysia has a good international record in working within the rules.

He said Malaysia’s strong governance has an edge over other economies and its strong legal system that is more advanced coupled with an educated workforce, of which there is a strong education system in place already.

“Good incentives are already in place for example pioneer Multimedia Super Corridor-status companies need not pay corporate tax in the first five years,” he added.

Mudd said there is also strong support and positive moves by the Government to push Malaysia as an outsourcing destination.

CompTIA members in Malaysia include the National Vocational Training Council under the Human Resources Ministry, New Horizons Computer Learning Centre, Getronics Solution (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and Hewlett-Packard (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.

Others are Intel Electronics (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Microsoft (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Sun Microsystems Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Fujitsu (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd and Hitachi Asia (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd.