Category Archives: Business

Business, Contributed

Four Steps to Accelerate Your Machine Learning Journey

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This is the golden age of machine learning­ (ML). Once considered peripheral, ML technology is becoming a core part of businesses around the world, regardless of the industry. By 2021, the International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that spending on artificial intelligence (AI) and other cognitive technologies will exceed $50 billion.

Locally, 25% of organizations say they are setting aside at least 10% of their budget for technology, which includes investments in big data analytics (64%), cloud computing (57%), Machine Learning and artificial intelligence (33%), and robotic process automation (27%), based on the Malaysian Institute of Accountants’ “MIA-ACCA Business Outlook Report 2020″. [1] As more companies gain awareness of the importance of ML, they should work towards getting it in motion as quickly and effectively as possible.

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At Amazon, we have been on our own ML journey for more than two decades – applying it to areas like personalization, supply chain management, and forecasting systems for our fulfillment process. Today, there is not a single business function at Amazon that is not made better through machine learning.

Whether your company is just getting started or in the middle of your first implementation, here are the four steps you should take to have a successful machine learning journey.  

Get Your Data in Order

When it comes to adopting machine learning, data is often cited as the number one challenge. We found that more than 50% of time spent in building ML models can be spent in data wrangling, data cleanup, and pre-processing stages. Therefore, prioritize investing in the establishment of a strong data strategy to avoid spending excessive time and resources on data cleanup and management.

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When starting out, the three most important questions to ask are:

  • What data is available today?
  • What data can be made available?
  • A year from now, what data will we wish we had started collecting today?

In order to determine what data is available today, you will need to overcome data hugging – the tendency for teams to gatekeep data they work with most closely. Breaking down silos between teams for a more expansive view of the data landscape while still maintaining data governance is crucial for long-term success.

Additionally, identify what data actually matters as part of your machine learning approach. Think about best ways to store data and invest early in the data processing tools for de-identification and/or anonymization, if needed.

Identify the Right Business Problems

When evaluating what and how to apply ML, focus on assessing the problem across three dimensions: data readiness, business impact, and machine learning applicability.

Balancing speed with business value is key. Instead of trying to embark on a three-year ML project, focus on a handful of critical business use cases that could be solved in the upcoming six to 10 months. Start by identifying places where you already have a lot of untapped data and evaluate if machine learning brings benefits. Avoid picking a problem that is flashy but has unclear business value, as it will end up becoming a one-off experiment.

Champion a Culture of Machine Learning

In order to scale, you need to champion a culture of machine learning. At its core, ML is experimentation­. Therefore, it is imperative that your organization embrace failures and take a long-term view of what is possible.

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Businesses also need to combine a blend of technical and domain experts to work backward from the customer problem. Assembling the right group of people also helps eliminate the cultural barrier to adoption with a quicker buy-in from the business.

Similarly, leaders should constantly find ways to simplify the process of ML adoption for their developers. Since building ML infrastructures at scale is a time and labor-intensive process, leaders should encourage their teams to use tools that cover the entire ML workflow to build, train, and deploy these models efficiently.

For instance, 123RF, a homegrown stock photography portal, aims to make design smarter, faster, and easier for users. To do so, it relies on Amazon Athena, Amazon Kinesis, and AWS Lambda for data pipeline processing. Its newer products like Designs.ai Videomaker uses Amazon Polly to create voice-overs in more than 10 different languages. With AWS, 123RF has maintained flexibility in scaling its infrastructure and shortened product development cycles and is looking to incorporate other services to support its machine learning & AI research.

Develop Your Team

Developing your team is essential to foster a successful machine learning culture. Rather than spending resources to recruit new talent in a competitive market, hone in on developing your company’s internal talent through robust training programs.

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Years ago, Amazon created an in-house Machine Learning University (MLU) to help its own developers sharpen their ML skills or equip neophytes with tools to get started. We made the same machine learning courses available to all developers through AWS’s Training and Certification offering.

DBS Bank, a Singaporean multinational bank, employed a different approach. It is collaborating with AWS to train its employees to program their own ML-powered AWS DeepRacer autonomous 1/18th scale car, and race among themselves at the DBS x AWS DeepRacer League. Through this initiative, it aims to train at least 3,000 employees to be conversant in AI and ML by year end.

[1] MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountants) and ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), Business Outlook Report 2020, 2020

Business, News

Is Astro Gearing for Online Streaming?

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Malaysia’s largest pay TV operator, Astro Malaysia Holdings, is looking to start a streaming service to take on deep-pocketed, international rivals such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. According to a report by Nikkei Asia, Astro is planning to launch a new streaming service sometime in 2021. The service will mainly focus on the original content made by the pay-TV company. This includes their numerous productions spanning multiple genres such as movies, series, and variety shows. Naturally, the main audience Astro is looking at for now, is the Malaysian audience.

Source: Astro Malaysia

Astro’s ability to subsidize local content production and its understanding of the market gives it and added advantage over global competitors. The report by Nikkei also pointed out that Astro is relying on its knowledge on the Malaysian market as well as its extensive customer, marketing, and sales reach in order to attract other content providers. Astro will be a natural partner to welcome any companies that are seeking to enter the Malaysia market . Astro has so far partnered with HBO GO and China’s iQIYI which aligns with Astro’s efforts to position itself as a “super aggregator” of digital content.

As it enters the Streaming (known in the industry as over the top (OTT)) it will be looking at catering to different groups which have emerged. This can be seen from the pricing strategies adopted by its competition which caters to unique groups with different psychologies. However, it seems that one thing that may take anyone by surprise, the pay TV operator isn’t going to banking on its brand for the streaming service opting to go with a completely new brand.

Business, Computers, Editorial, News

[VMWorld 2020] WMware Tanzu Harnesses the Power of Kubernetes

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VMWorld is happening now and coincidently, NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conference is also happening. Both are happening online, obviously with the current pandemic situation. In NVIDIA’s most recent keynote, they made an announcement to tell the world that they have just formed a partnership with VMWare to enhance their virtualisation capabilities via NVIDIA’s new GPU based computing solutions.

Today’s start of the show though is not NVIDIA, although they have made some very interesting announcements and progress. Today sees VMWare embracing Kubernetes as a big part of their business. Today is the day of Tanzu.

Kubernetes

Source: Kubernetes

What is Kubernetes? First of all, no; this is not the first time we look into the technology. Secondly, the technology is nothing new, Google has been playing with Kubernetes for the longest time, and other solutions providers have hopped on to the technology for years now.

Kubernetes, in the words of Red Hat, is a container orchestration platform. The keyword, that I missed out on purpose, is Open Source. That also means that anyone has access to it, improve on it, and improvise it for their own use. It is a technology developed by Google engineers for Google’s own use at one point, but because Google is Google, they made it an open source platform.

In simpler words, Kubernetes group processes and application databases into cubes (or containers). These cubes can be called upon whenever an application requires a certain data or run certain processes. That also means that you do not need to necessarily store your application database with your application. It can be kept and shifted around anywhere, even on cloud. It is even clever enough to stack and unstack itself depending on requirements and loads on your hardware. If something fails, you do not lose all your data, because containers. This is the magic of Kubernetes, and it could benefit plenty of enterprises.

The VMware Tanzu

Source: VMware

This is where VMware’s Tanzu comes in. The Tanzu portfolio is not exactly a pure Kubernetes workflow platform. It runs microservices, other sort of containers and Kubernetes as well. To put it plainly, it is an application breakdown tool. It breaks down a large application or database into smaller containers, run them as microservices or work with them as Kubernetes containers, and you get a service that is accessible not only in your office, but at the café down the road as well.

Yes, it sounds generally like what other container type application and tool does. Because it is exactly that but made native to VMWare’s tools. Tools like this allow companies to add capabilities to their applications and processes while keeping them running in tip top conditions. They call this DevOps.

The whole idea of running Tanzu on the VMware platform is to quickly deploy your applications on cloud. Because it is VMware as well, Tanzu is specifically built on Kubernetes to enhance their virtualisation solutions like vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation. That also means that Tanzu is a cloud solution more than anything. It is also technically a Kubernetes management tool to simplify Kubernetes for users. So, it helps you, as VMware’s clients (if you are, when you are, whichever it may be) get started with Kubernetes nearly on the get go.

They may be a little late to the game of deploying Kubernetes and even fully harnessing the power of Kubernetes. They are also not going to be the last adopters of Kubernetes. In some sense too, they are simplifying Kubernetes by a factor of 10 for their customers.

Source: IT Hollow

In this case as well, customers might already have their own Kubernetes and container management tools in their workflow at this point. VMware says that customers still can benefit from Tanzu even if they have a Kubernetes workflow already. According to VMware, Tanzu does not just stop at Kubernetes. It is a suite of tools designed to ease workloads and centralise management efforts for customers. In that sense, integrating Tanzu into an existing Kubernetes workload and process is just a matter of matching what is required via Tanzu’s Mission Control platform.

Why Tanzu and Kubernetes?

Here is the thing though, how does this change our lives? How does VMware with Kubernetes power change our lives? After all, we are all just end-users.

If you work in a corporate environment, at this time of Pandemic, you would most likely be spending more time working remotely more than anything else. Imagine yourself, multiplied by more than a few hundred. There are hundreds, or even thousands of you and your colleagues trying to access your company’s intranet systems. You and your colleagues are going to be accessing the company’s systems to simply key in new data, or pull a previous data, or even share some work information with your colleagues 20KM away.

Imagine if you need to access the whole chunk of applications to do any of that. Imagine if all your colleagues need to access a single application server for all their minor processes too. That could slow down your entire workflow. Kubernetes and container platforms help spread that workload to ease load on a single server and ensure that everyone gets to do what they need to do without overloading your PC and the cloud platform.

Essentially, this is also kind of how your smartphone app works. Your smartphone apps access what you ask it to access when you need it. That way, it saves plenty of storage space in your smartphone, and ensure that millions of others can also access the app and its services when there is demand.

So, why is Tanzu important? It allows your company to do exactly whatever that we have just explained and described. Except that your organisation’s IT department can do it faster, from a single management platform instead of accessing a completely different system. With vSphere, the management can be done across multiple server sites too, thanks to VMware’s know how in machine virtualisation. All this, just so that you will not notice any difference when you work from home, and in the office.

To know more about VMware, their services and solutions, and Tanzu, you can head over to their website.

Business, Editorial

Digitization – The Key to Business Resilience During a Pandemic

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COVID-19 poses a unique challenge to businesses, forcing them to adopt practices which many only saw further down the road when it came to their digitization plans. In fact, we’ve seen the effects of the pandemic on many businesses who have failed to adapt or adopt plans to build in resilience in these unprecedented times. That said, the big question remains, “How can businesses be more resilient with the COVID-19 reality?”.

There are many factors that lend itself to a business’s resilience but one of the biggest factors is the company’s progress in their plans for digitization. Conor McNamara, Managing Director of ASEAN at Amazon Web Services (AWS), highlights that a company’s progress towards digitization, particularly in their adoption of cloud technologies, has been one of the determining factors of resilience during these times. He has also highlighted that the transition to the cloud isn’t simply a technological one, it’s a multifaceted one that builds in capacity, increases agility, changes mindsets, and transforms the culture of an organisation.

Thriving Businesses Have Used COVID-19 as an Impetus for Digitization

No one can deny it. The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way that companies and businesses need to operate. Research has shown that the new realities of the pandemic have led to an increase in demand for resources such as the internet. This is inevitably spurred by the increased adoption of work from home policies necessitated by lockdowns the world over – a clear indication that our business realities have changed. This is corroborated by AWS, which reported an increased uptake of services such as Amazon Chime, their web-conferencing platform, Amazon Workspaces and other productivity related services.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of digital transformation across all industries. So far indications are that organizations, including those in ASEAN, have already adopted DX plans and/or accelerated their transformation plans have been known to have coped better with the crisis.”

Daphne Chung, Research Director, IDC Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) cloud services, and software research group

That said, digitization doesn’t happen overnight. Companies have to create an environment that allows and empowers staff and decision makers to adopt technologies such as AWS. The adoption of public and private cloud technologies have allowed many AWS customers to adapt to the new realities more seamlessly. In fact, Globe Telecom was able to spin up virtual call centers with Amazon Connect which allowed them to adapt to the new realities with ease and even increase staff productivity since the pandemic hit. What’s more, the company was able to affect this transition in 24 hours. Of course, the reality is that not many companies will be able to do this.

“Many businesses and organizations have now understood the importance of the cloud and are committed more than ever to get their business on the cloud. At AWS, we keep many organizations functioning, and allow them to adapt when a crisis such as the pandemic occurs.”

Conor McNamara, Managing Director of ASEAN at Amazon Web Services

The new realities of the pandemic have allowed companies to expedite their plans for digitization and cloud adoption. Those who have been successful in taking advantage of the new realities as an impetus for plans already in the pipeline are the ones who have most demonstrated the most resilience with the current situation.

Executive Driven Digitization Policies Spur Resilience

It’s always been said that digitization is a journey. Yet, we never think to ask who would be the best to guide and determine the course the company takes. Conor McNamara stresses that the business resilience of any given orgranisation is very dependent on the company’s executives. Decisions and policies made by CXOs are what will enable companies to maximize the opportunity that COVID-19 has presented to accelerate a company’s digital trajectory.

It’s pretty simple; when the decision to adopt cloud technologies and further advance the company’s digital journey comes from the level of CXOs, it naturally sets off a cascade which will allow companies to think differently. The CEO’s acceptance that the future of business is in the cloud sets off a cascade of events that start with the search for and upskilling of staff to meet the new needs of the business. The demand for skills that enable the company to be competitive and prepared for further advancements in their journey. It also creates a new mindset mired in the need to be agile and proactive to meet customer needs.

IDC sees an opportunity to manage the downturn better by using technology to minimize the impact of the current crisis and emerge on the other side of the curve resilient, more digitally fit and agile, and ultimately, better equipped to capture their share of the new opportunities as part of the “next normal”.

Daphne Chung, Research Director, IDC Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) cloud services, and software research group

This impetus prepares businesses to handle situations like the current pandemic. The skills, demands and needs of businesses literally changed overnight as countries began to lockdown. Brick and mortar businesses were forced to consider adopting digital and cloud technologies to keep their businesses viable. Businesses which were already making the shift to cloud and digital technologies with CXO driven policies have so far been the most resilient and adaptable.

In fact, the current realities have been used as an opportunity to upskill workforces. AWS shares that since the beginning of the lockdowns, there has been a sharp uptick in the demand for certification courses and trainings in their AWS Education platform.

It’s a People Related Change

Perhaps the most important quote we can share from Conor McNamara is this: “[Digital Transformation] is a People related change”. He said this while he was explaining some of the new realities AWS’s customers have been facing – and when it comes to it, it seems like the statement rings true in every aspect of a business’ digital transformation; every step of the way involves dealing with people.

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The digital transformation journey is one that involves a major cultural change. A change that shifts the mindset of preparedness to deal with any given situation. Creating a culture of work which prepares staff for ambiguity and change. In some cases, these businesses have made failure a norm. They adopt providers such as AWS to minimise the cost of failure and continue to innovate. This is one of the hallmarks of a business which has been able to deal with the realities of the pandemic. These companies are ready or have already adopted cloud and are prepared for the new work from home norm; it wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that they may be the ones best prepared for the next norm post COVID.

Adopting cloud and shifting to digital usually has the connotation of being cold and impersonal. However, one take away from businesses that are showing resilience is that it couldn’t be further from the truth. These businesses have shifted their focus to their clients and customers building solutions catered to their needs. Perhaps more importantly, their digital transformation and shift to the cloud has made them more cognizant to the needs of their clients and customers.

Business Resilience is Built from the Top Down and Empowered by the right technologies

Essentially, business resilience is built from the top down with policies spearheaded by CXOs and CEOs that drive a cultural change in the company; one which prepares them for sudden and constant change, allowing businesses to be agile and adaptable. That said, these changes are empowered by companies such as AWS who provide the cost optimizations and technologies that allow this shift to happen. This has been tried and tested with the harsh realities of the pandemic.

Business, Computers, News

Samsung Holds the AI Forum 2020 via YouTube in November 2020

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‘Samsung AI Forum 2020’ Explores the Future of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)! This is an interesting forum that highlights the future of AI and a platform to exchange ideas, researches and insights . It will be held via its Youtube channel for two days from the 2nd November 2020 to 3rd November 2020. The most exciting part is that the forum gathers industry experts from various industries in a discussion on the future of A.I.

As you know, Samsung is one of the largest technology company in the world and delivers the world with transformative ideas. They make some of the best selling and highly acclaimed electronics in the world too. Samsung technically makes nearly all sort of electronics; including televisions, smartphones, tablets, digital appliances, network systems, LED solutions, memory, and even network systems.

The forum on the first day of the conference, on the 2nd of November, will be hosted by Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). Dr. Kinam Kim, Vice Chairman and CEO of Device solutions at Samsung Electronics will deliver opening remarks in the forum. There will be no shortage of presentations by the world’s most renowned A.I. Experts on “AI Technologies for Changes in the Real World.”

Many of the professionals will have sharing sessions on day 1 especially the winner of the 2018 Turing Award (it is like the “Nobel Price” in computing), Professor Yoshua Bengio will be co-chairing for the forum in this event. On the first day of the event, the “researcher of the year” award will be presented to the winner as well as a US$ 30,000 prize.

Day 2, themed “Human-Centered AI”, will see Dr. Sebastian Seung the president and head of Samsung Research engage with A.I. experts to deliver a speech and share their different insights. Professor Christopher Manning, a conspicuous expert will also deliver the current status and future of Natural Language Processing (NLP) that required for Human-Centered AI. He has been working with Samsung on Q&A and dialogue modelling on the overall of NLP technologies development.

Samsung’s AI forum, as mentioned earlier, will be held on the 2nd November 2020 onward. It will be held exclusively on their YouTube page, which also means that it will be absolutely free to watch and ‘attend. You might want to register and look for more information on the Forum in their website too.

Business, Contributed

CFO, CIO Collaboration Is Crucial For COVID-19 Era – And Beyond

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In this COVID-19 global pandemic era, there is not a single CFO out there who isn’t scrutinizing their company’s spend. It has been very challenging for Malaysian businesses as well – with a weakening economy, supply chain disruptions, knock-on effects from troubled sectors and loss of jobs.

Fortunately, data’s role has exploded in the business world and is favourably impacting the situation. To properly assess a company’s financial position, a CFO needs to be able to effectively access data. The key is to take a large amount of information and narrow it down to action items. Effectively harnessing important data can be an issue.

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IT has evolved from being a background cost centre generating reports used to close the books, to a place where data is housed, manipulated and made available, which is key to running a successful business. IT is no longer in the background, carrying out mundane operations; it is capturing vital data and is now a strategic voice in running a business. When a CFO can effectively capture and analyse data, he or she can improve specific strategic areas. As a result, there is an increasing collaboration between CFOs and CIOs as IT formats data and provides insight into what might be most helpful to Finance.

The COVID-19 Challenges

While financial scrutiny is applicable to all areas, IT is different because most CFOs do not know all the specific technological nuances for his or her company. As the pandemic forces businesses to deal with unprecedented financial challenges and pressures, the CIO needs to help provide perspective to the CFO for necessary actions and what items might be able to be temporarily suspended without harming the business.

Buying IT equipment requires cash, and all companies are looking at actions to maximize cash flow and minimize expenses as COVID-19 impacts the global economy. Some expenditures are going to have to be delayed as cash is prioritized away from capital expenses. Most CFOs will not know what IT department costs to reduce without a collaborative conversation with the CIO.

man and woman in a meeting
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One strategy I consistently employ with our CIO, which has been extremely helpful during this crisis, is a regularly scheduled, detailed review of all ad-hoc expenses across the company, looking for technology items that should be aggregated or are not compliant with standards. This is an area that requires CIO input and experience.

Relying on Each Other

It is very difficult for CFOs to keep up with IT. It evolves so rapidly and requires specialty knowledge; generalists are left in the dust when it comes to technological progress. A CFO can measure costs but determining capabilities and staying ahead of what is on the horizon requires a specialist, a CIO. At the same time, technology often offers glitzy, fancy new toys, and it is imperative that IT professionals stay focused on what type of capital is available, what they want to spend it on, and how their values are aligned with the business.

Communication and collaboration with our CIO to work on business cases for development projects helps validate the financials of the project. A working knowledge of the ever-changing standards in technology protects financial projections and budgets.

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CFOs are focused on maintaining normal business activity without increasing expenses. Industry analyst Gartner has reported for many years that third party maintenance is less expensive than what OEMs offer. And the service is just as good if not better. If anybody came to you and demonstrated, “You’re paying $100,000 for this service; I can do it for $50,000-$60,000 and I’m going to do it better,” there’s not a CFO who wouldn’t take that deal, but it would require CIO scrutiny and knowledge.

I.T.’s Unique Contributions

In my collaborations with I.T. leaders, I have learned that I.T. is uniquely positioned to scan the entire company for technology-enabled improvements: revenue opportunities, productivity increases and cost savings. When the CIO and the CFO collaborate to find and implement these improvements, the company becomes more effective than if a siloed approach is taken on a per-department basis.

While COVID-19 is a challenge, it also presents an opportunity to identify improvements. As people are suddenly forced into working in a different model, the traditional ways of doing business can be challenged more quickly. A collaboration between the CIO and the CFO in looking at the results of the workforce being sent home may present opportunities in office utilization, software purchases, hardware deployment and other areas.

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While hardware and software expenses are relatively easy to monitor and measure against the company’s metrics, the implementation of IT projects is a key collaboration area for CFOs and CIOs. Every project brought forward to IT can have cost structures that include outside purchases as well as internal labour. Projects need to bring value to the company; and the calculation of that value, perhaps in the form of ROI, requires CIO and CFO collaboration to accurately calculate the value and measure the results after the project is in place.

With our CIO, I consult with an ongoing process analysis team that looks for cost reduction opportunities that won’t impact customer satisfaction. This input is key to make sure a potential financial decision that may benefit the company does not negatively impact customer service.

The Park Place Difference

CFOs will not know that value without CIOs sharing the information. For example, CFOs and CIOs together can protect their business revenues and their business-critical IT by “sweating” their IT assets longer through value-added life-cycle support services. Maximizing payback and ROI on hardware infrastructure can yield financial benefits for the longer term.

There is a new category to look out for: Discover, Monitor, Support and Optimize (DMSO), that Park Place Technologies is uniquely positioned to deliver for its customers. It is a fully integrated approach to managing critical infrastructure that can help businesses manage data centre remotely, optimise network performance with analytics, and simplify the management of complex hybrid environments while realising cost-saving.  

As businesses continue their digital transformations, they depend on data that resides on-premises, in public and private clouds, devices at the edge and networks, and operation centers that span the globe. Managing these complex environments is increasingly becoming more difficult. Exponential increases in time, labor and cost, as well as the complexity of navigating a maze of service providers to establish clear accountability and support, requires a more intelligent and flexible approach as DMSO. We are all hoping the COVID-19 era passes quickly. But the long-term necessity and benefits of CFOs and CIOs collaborating will continue well beyond the current crisis and will remain an ongoing part of any business’s evolution, strategy and long-term health

Business, Contributed

The Future of Work: A Shift from HQ to Business Center

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Up until the early part of this year, simple daily activities such as taking a train to work, entering a crowded elevator, and sitting down in an open workspace with colleagues were things no one would hesitate to do, and perhaps even took for granted. The appearance of the COVID-19 pandemic changed that in almost an instant. For employers and employees, the workplace experience moving forward may never be the same, ever again. Businesses are undergoing massive changes in a transformation process to meet the needs and demands of the post-pandemic world.

What does that look like for an enterprise? The answer is simple: create a new model of hybrid working where employees continue to work remotely, only coming into the office to collaborate on projects. In this scenario, the office then turns into a business center – or collaboration space – which may also indicate the end of the open office era and a shift in the purpose of a company’s headquarters as we once knew it.

We all know that this shift is here to stay. According to recent research from Gartner, 82 percent of company leaders are planning to let employees work remotely, at least some of the time. And a new global Lenovo study finds that employees expect a similar swing in employer mentality, with 52 percent of respondents noting they believe they’ll continue to work from home more than they did pre-COVID-19 – even after social distancing measures lift.

As employers realize that this distributed workforce is not going anywhere, the shift to the office as a business center will only continue to grow. This will make the need for a solid IT foundation, inclusive of dependable employee personal devices, strong cybersecurity software (and education), and remote IT support even more integral than it once was.

In looking at the role of technology and how it has evolved during this pandemic, we can take a step back to when COVID-19 first started to impact businesses globally. The number of remote employees increased at a pace more rapid than anyone expected or was even prepared to handle. As a result, collaboration tools such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom saw usage skyrocket, with Teams seeing an increase of users as much as 70 percent and Zoom revenue soars 169 percent ever since the pandemic first struck. In this process, as employees and consumers alike started leaning on videos to spend time with coworkers – whether for meetings or company “happy hours” – these tools evolved their functionalities to make the user experience more seamless.

Today, employers have started to realize that their employees have been just as productive from home as they would have been in the office. Lenovo’s research shows that almost two-thirds of the global workforce surveyed feel they are more productive working from home than in the office. So, the question then becomes – why bring them back to the office, and why not instead save on real estate costs and invest in stronger technology to equip a hybrid workforce?

With that mindset, technology will only continue to evolve to meet employee and employer needs. Beyond collaboration software, the other tools that remain central for employee productivity in our hybrid work environment include personal laptops, noise-canceling headsets, and large monitors.

In the office, that may mean creating a “touchless environment” where employees have their collaboration technology to minimize physical contact. Or it may mean creating smaller phone booths and huddle spaces as a move away from the open floorplan, which could be equipped with standalone video software making it easy to collaborate from one room to the next. On the go, it may be arming employees with a foldable PC that makes it easier and more convenient to transition from the office to a coffee shop to home or anywhere in between. And at home, it may require employers to invest in products employees need for their “home office,” such as standing desks or ergonomic chairs.

For IT departments, this makes it integral to invest in the infrastructure that enables IT to manage a large remote workforce. This can include increasing cloud storage for more remote storage, doubling down on security solutions to manage the increase in cyber threats, and remote IT solutions to help troubleshoot employee tech issues from afar.

While the new “business center” model may not be a fit for all organizations, one thing we know is that office as we know it will be different in the coming years. Work from anywhere will become a norm, company real estate footprints may shrink, and employees will expect much more of their employers than ever before.

Business, Lifestyle, Podcast

Tech & Tonic Kre8tif! 2020 Special featuring Hasnul Hadi Samsudin

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The Malaysian creative industry is climbing up the ladder! Since it’s nascent years, the industry has been working to create innovative content and share Malaysian stories. The Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) has been hard at work promoting and upskilling the industry’s key players since 2009 and it has been endeavouring to create an international platform to grow and progress the ASEAN region’s animation and emerging media industries. Kre8tif! was their chosen platform to marry regional talent with international players.

Kre8tif! 2020 is happening on the 7th to 10th of September 2020! This is an interesting conference that highlights the Malaysian Digital Content industry. It is happening virtually now, with over 700 participants from all over the world. You can even attend it for free. Participants will be able to gain insights from companies like Netflix, Epic Games, Pixar and Disney!

In this podcast, we spoke to Hasnul about this year’s Kre8tif! conference and how they are pivoting themselves around the current pandemic. We got a little insight too on what we can expect from this year’s virtual conference! You can find more information on Kre8tif on https://kre8tif.com.my/!

Hasnul Hadi is currently the Vice President of the Digital Creative Content Division over at MDEC. He has spent nearly a decade advocating and championing the game development and creative industry in Malaysia. He and his team have been tirelessly working away behind the scenes pushing policies and connecting companies to build the creative industry. Aside from his dedication in making Malaysia a creative powerhouse in the Southeast Asian region, he’s also an avid gamer. He’s spent many hours honing his gaming skills behind a keyboard, on a controller and on-the-go!

Business, Contributed

Can cybersecurity keep up with flexible work arrangements?

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2020 will be remembered as the year the world experienced its largest ever work-from-home experiment as the global pandemic forced businesses to move operations online and adapt to a new distributed workforce.

As some markets around the globe gradually ease some restrictions and allow employees to go back to the office, the situation remains in a delicate balance and work as we know it has been redefined for many. Increasingly, organisations are embracing the new work model and the many benefits that come with it including increased employee well-being and better work-life balance. In fact, some organisations are now establishing permanent work-from-home policies with 60 percent of the largest companies integrating flexible virtual-physical collaborative environments by 2021, according to Bain & Company. This is supported by Lenovo’s Work From Home survey which found that nearly half (46 percent) of employees are as productive when working from home as they are in the office, with 15 percent saying that productivity increases at home.

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The survey also found that 87 percent of workers feel somewhat ready to adapt to a distributed, work-from-anywhere environment if required. So too are cybercriminals. The looming uncertainty among employees of the delicate, everchanging global circumstances, combined with their unfamiliarity with the new work arrangement, has created a wealth of opportunities for cyber-attacks. Cyber criminals are taking advantage of the situation to launch COVID-themed attacks, phishing attempts and spread fake news. In Malaysia, cybersecurity cases have seen a surge of more than 90% during the Movement Control Order (MCO) so far compared to the same period last year, CyberSecurity Malaysia revealed.

Watch for your blind spots

With employees accessing confidential data from various devices, locations, and unsecured networks, it opens more endpoints and vulnerabilities for cyberattacks. In our hyper-digital and mobile world, hardware security is becoming ever more critical, as across the globe, each person is expected to own 6.58 network connected devices in 2020. In fact, according to cybersecurity solutions provider Sepio Systems, there has been a 300 percent increase in the number of new connected devices from unknown vendors attached to the enterprise network.

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While a majority of employees are working primarily from home, it is only a matter of time before they begin heading back to shared workspaces, coffee shops and planes and once again enjoy the flexibility of working from anywhere. This means that an organisation’s network, database and confidential files may be accessed from unsecured VPNs, unknown networks, and rogue access points. Without proper security standards put in place, hackers can easily gain access to an organisation’s network via vulnerable devices and execute attacks remotely. Organisations must take this into consideration and be on the offensive to mitigate potential attacks before malicious entities infiltrate company systems and confidential data.

Adopt a Zero Trust mindset

The nature of a distributed workforce removes the luxury of face-to-face identification and validation. Tech Wire Asia reported that cyber scams based on COVID-19 becomes prevalent in recent months, as hackers look to capitalize on the virus-driven uncertainty affecting individuals, enterprises, and governments. This means that organisations must double down on their efforts in credential and access management and continue to educate employees to identify and weed out impersonation scams and phishing attempts. As hackers grow in sophistication, organisations and employees must take a Zero Trust. In order to protect business and employee data, organisations must implement a system to ensure that the right people have access to the right data at the right time, on a ‘need-to-know’ basis.

Empowering a distributed workforce with cybersecurity

To reap the full benefits of a distributed workforce in the long run, organisations must provide employees with secure devices and create a safe digital environment to operate in, allowing them to focus on the job at hand. This shift to a decentralised work environment means that IT teams must have extended visibility over digital platforms and the organisations digital ecosystems in order to identify and mitigate potential threats in a timely manner.

However, with the shortage of cyber talent and growing digital footprint, this can take a toll on IT teams. IT teams must be supported to enhance their capabilities with solutions that provide both hardware and software security. For example, Lenovo’s ThinkShield solution helps secure devices from development through disposal, giving IT admins more visibility into end points and providing easier and more secure authentication. Lenovo has also partnered with SentinelOne to leverage its behavioral AI technology to predict tomorrow’s attacks today and allow ThinkShield devices to predict cyberattacks and enable devices to self-heal from any attack instantaneously, adding another critical layer to our ThinkShield offering.

As employees have quickly adapted to new work structures in these unique times, organisations must also embrace the risk that comes with it and put in place the right measures and solutions to create a secure and robust environment for employees to operate in. One way Lenovo helps organisations empower employees is by offering services that supports remote workers. For employees who do not have access to IT helpdesks, Lenovo’s Premier Support allows for direct, 24/7 access to elite Lenovo engineers who provide unscripted troubleshooting and comprehensive support for hardware and software. This results in less downtime for end users when things go wrong, freeing IT staff up to focus on strategic efforts.

Only then will organisations and employees be able to reap the full benefits of a distributed workforce and build a stronger digital foundation to effectively navigate and succeed in the new world of work.

Business, Contributed

The Top Skills a Cloud Architect Needs to Be Successful

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As the world rapidly evolves, digitalization is taking place across all aspects of life, and ushering in a rise in cloud adoption. Today, it is vital for employees to understand and acquire the skills it takes to succeed and stay relevant for jobs in the digital economy. Cloud architects must keep up with the pace by adapting and expanding their existing skillset in order to be considered valuable candidates and employees.

As cloud adoption rises, it is not surprising to see growing demand for cloud expertise. Based on the Malaysian Institute of Accounts’ “MIA-ACCA Business Outlook Report 2020,” 25% of organizations in Malaysia say they are allocating at least 10% of their budget for technology, including investing in big data analytics (64%), cloud computing (57%) and more.[1] Yet, research shows that 90% of IT decision-makers report cloud skills shortages in their workforce.[2]

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When I first started out in the IT industry years ago, the role of cloud architect was almost nonexistent. However, cloud adoption has grown considerably since then, and the role of cloud architect is currently in high demand and will continue to present endless opportunities for business growth and innovation.

But first – what does a cloud architect do?

Cloud architects are responsible for managing an organization’s cloud computing architecture. They have in-depth knowledge of the architectural principles and services used to develop technical cloud strategy, assist with cloud migration efforts, review workload architectures, and provide guidance on how to address high-risk issues. To do this, cloud architects need a mix of business, technical, and people skills, as well as an understanding of the always-evolving, technical training that may benefit their team.

At Amazon Web Services (AWS), I lead a team of cloud solutions architect in Southeast Asia, and we are constantly on the lookout for individuals with a builder’s mentality and a desire to build, invent, and innovate on behalf of their customers. This is especially important as the role of cloud architect has evolved beyond just architecting infrastructure solutions like database and storage, to building and innovating reliable solutions that involve emerging technologies such as machine learning.

What skills are most important for a cloud architect?

Flexibility and Eagerness to Learn

A cloud architect must be able to work in a wide variety of scenarios and be open to learn the unique requirements of each project. With a curious mind-set, cloud architects can be better equipped to seek out new approaches to problem solving.

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Time Management

Cloud architecture professionals must possess strong time management skills. Their days are varied and can include customer meetings to discuss problems and needs and designing architectural frameworks for those needs. As such, cloud architects are mindful to plan their days, prioritize their time on tasks, and understand how to maximize small pockets of time.

Communication Skills, Business Acumen, and Decisiveness

Cloud architects are encouraged to ask for a seat at the decision-making table and be prepared to communicate their design to any stakeholder. Successful cloud architects know how to communicate to audiences with little or no technical knowledge, while aligning their recommendations to business imperatives and the bottom-line. Other than that, stakeholders also rely on cloud architects to provide guidance from a calm, leading place of domain authority.

Industry Technical Credentials

A cloud architect must also possess the necessary technical skills to serve as the foundation for cloud architecture planning and management, including basic programming, software development and continuous integration, database, networking and security skills, modern application architecture skills, and more.

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Additionally, cloud architects can attain an industry-recognized certification, such as the new AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate certification, which validates the ability to design and deploy well-architected solutions on AWS that meet customer requirements.

Over the last few years, I have seen cloud computing evolve from a relatively unknown technology to a leading driver of business results. While the technology has grown and changed significantly, most skills needed to succeed in its use have remained largely constant. By committing to understand how to use cloud to its full potential – and empowering the professionals who make that possible – we can make the most of the tremendous opportunity cloud creates for businesses and employees to thrive.

[1] MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountants) and ACCA (Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), Business Outlook Report 2020, 2020

[2] Global Knowledge, 2018 IT Skills and Salary Report, 2018.