Category Archives: Contributed

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.

Computers, Contributed

5 Reasons to Put Your Old PCs Out to Pasture

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In today’s uncertain times, a PC modernization strategy can both turbo charge employee productivity and deliver a competitive edge.

It’s tempting with the rapid rise of remote work due to COVID-19 to think that out of sight is out of mind when it comes to your PCs. If your employees can still hop on a video call, they must be working at maximum productivity. The truth is much more complicated.

If your organization, like so many others, has a four-year PC refresh cycle, the new wave of remote work should, if anything, accelerate that cycle. Even before the current global health crisis, users were becoming more mobile than ever before, raising risks around security, flexibility, efficiency and efficacy.

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While the precautionary and voluntary remote work continues, IT staff is also facing unprecedented challenges. Onboarding employees, supporting current ones, and maintaining systems for maximum productivity are challenges they are struggling to solve, all while trying to stay afloat with their higher-level duties.

Managing aging systems at scale is difficult when everyone is in one place, and with that becoming rare, the issues multiply exponentially. No business can afford unplanned down time on a regular basis, and employees can grow increasingly frustrated as their productivity drops.

“Aged systems are costing businesses in terms of lost productivity and security risk, and with much of the workforce remote now, IT managers are faced with even bigger maintenance and support challenges.” says  Peter Chambers, Managing Director, APAC at AMD.

Speaking of aging systems, TechAisle found way back in 2016 that it can cost as much as $1,700 per year to maintain PCs older than 4 years. Those kinds of hidden costs can creep up on a business, raising TCO.

If your organization still sees PC refreshes as a luxury, try seeing it instead as an opportunity to unlock immense improvements in productivity, performance and collaboration. The AMD Ryzen™ PRO 4000 family of processors and partner platforms, for example, cover all the bases for any organization’s modern computing needs, delivering a straight line to productivity and PC modernization.

Still need convincing? Here are five great reasons to perform a PC refresh now.

Turbocharge performance. Here is the new reality of work in 2020: increased complexity, juggling workloads, mega multi-tasking, and operating remotely. Offering the most cores and threads in a mobile business processor for ultra-thin notebooks with the Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U processor, AMD Ryzen PRO processors deliver top-of-line performance and responsiveness across a wide variety of workloads, from crunching data to rendering videoconference calls to compiling code.

For example, the AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U platform delivers up to 37% faster performance running Microsoft Office in PCMark 10 Applications benchmark compared to the previous generation Ryzen 5 PRO 3700U processor.  In addition, the same AMD platform offers up to 19% faster performance in Microsoft Word, up to 77% faster performance in Excel, and up to 27% faster performance in PowerPoint versus the previous generation.

This leadership performance comes without compromise to battery life. AMD Ryzen PRO processors help to maximize workforce productivity by offering up to 20 hours of battery life on a premium platform.

Improve security features. Protecting sensitive corporate data has never been more important. Modern notebooks and PCs are often never fully turned off, raising the threat for stolen data. AMD Ryzen PRO processors, featuring AMD PRO security, deliver a multi-layered approach to security features, helping protect data from sophisticated attacks and avoiding downtime. In addition to a set of silicon and firmware-level security features, AMD Ryzen Pro processors employ AMD Memory Guard system memory encryption to help reduce the threat of physical memory attacks even if the laptop is left in standby mode.

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Make IT management a breeze. IT departments, already spread thin, need all the help they can get with supporting remote workers. AMD PRO Manageability is a full cross-platform feature set enabled on all PRO processors that simplifies remote device management. With AMD PRO manageability, IT can manage a mixed environment of PCs in their fleet with ease, from simplified deployment with Windows® Autopilot, to efficient patch management to address security vulnerabilities, to ongoing management for a wide range of system issues.  AMD Ryzen PRO processors also fully enable support for Microsoft Endpoint Manager – a cloud-powered set of management tools to provision, deploy, manage, and secure endpoints and applications across an organization.  

Boost efficiency. Simply put, organizations need the latest hardware to drive today’s modern software experiences. There are also significant stealth costs associated with legacy systems, including on-going maintenance and repair services, that chip away at the bottom line and exceed the cost of upgrading PCs or laptops. New PCs powered by Ryzen PRO processors help boost efficiency by delivering leadership performance and up to 20hours of battery life on a premium platform – driving up productivity by eliminating downtime that comes with aged hardware issues such as long start up time, frequent crashes, and shortened battery life, and all things being equal, by helping to lower TCO with reduced power consumption vis a vis a high efficiency processor. 

With enterprise-grade quality, long-term reliability, and planned software stability, new PCs with Ryzen PRO processors can bring peace of mind to organizations and are a logical choice for today’s remote and highly mobile workforce.

Choose wisely and benefit. Whether it’s a notebook or desktop, AMD Ryzen PRO processors are available in a wide range of commercial OEM products across varying price points, giving enterprises an array of options to accommodate different budgets and user needs.

Even during a pandemic, business keeps moving faster than ever. Your organization cannot afford to slow down when there are so many options to keep your competitive edge and employee productivity high.

To learn more, visit the following links:

https://www.amd.com/en/where-to-buy/commercial-systems

https://www.amd.com/en/processors/laptop-processors-for-business

https://www.amd.com/en/ryzen-pro

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/pro-technologies

https://community.amd.com/community/amd-business/blog/2020/05/07/the-new-standard-for-modern-business-notebooks-amd-ryzen-pro-mobile-processors

A properly configured HP EliteBook 835 G7 with AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 4750U Processor, gets up to 24 hours of MM14 battery life: https://press.hp.com/us/en/press-releases/2020/hp-provides-ultimate-office-experience-at-home.html  Actual battery life will vary based on several factors, including, but not limited to: system configuration and software, settings, product use and age, and operating conditions. AMD has not independently tested or verified the battery life claim. See www.bapco.com for additional details. RNP-28

As of February 2020. “Most Cores and Threads” in a mobile business processor for ultrathin notebooks.  RNP-19

*Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) – the cost to purchase + cost of operation. Electricity is a cost of operation; therefore, higher efficiency processors can enable a lower TCO than low efficiency processors that use more power.

[1]Small Business PC Study, TechAisle, 2016

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.

Business, Contributed

Cracking the Code to Digital Banking Success

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“We live in a time of great change. Thanks to technology, the rate of change around us continues to accelerate,” said Jim Whitehurst, president of IBM. Although today’s banking landscape in Asia-Pacific is proving slow to change, the springboards that could redefine banking are quickly emerging. 

One such springboard is regulators issuing digital banking licenses in the region. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, for example, gave out eight virtual banking licenses last year. Awardees include Ant SME Services (Hong Kong) Limited, Ping An OneConnect Company Limited, Tencent’s Infinium Limited, and Xiaomi’s Insight Fintech HK Limited. Depending on the country, the licenses would allow non-banking entities to conduct banking activities such as taking deposits from retail customers and giving out loans to businesses. Since such firms are not required to have physical branches, they are also called online-only, virtual, or neo-banks. Examples of virtual banks in the region that are already in operations include Tencent’s WeBank in China, and Kakao Bank in South Korea. 

These new entrants, together with fintechs, have raised customers’ expectations of banking services. Recent research from independent research firm Forrester found that 77% of Asia-Pacific banking customers prefer to interact with their financial services providers on digital channels, especially in mobile-first countries such as Mainland China, India, Indonesia, and Thailand. Nearly three-quarters of them also believed that they should be able to accomplish any financial task on a mobile device. 

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As the incumbent banks in Asia-Pacific are finding ways to address those changes head-on, they also need to look at their IT infrastructure, which supports and enables their business models. This is because the IT infrastructure handles the most demanding compute transactions such as trading stocks, bonds, currencies, or derivatives, or allowing retail customers to make purchases using a smartphone app. 

Simplifying IT to drive better business outcomes

Established banks today are running on core systems that are often inflexible, expensive to maintain, and difficult to integrate with customer channels. Moreover, while integration is necessary, it is not sufficient to be able to create the technology platform flexibility necessary to lower operating costs, adapt to changes quickly, and optimize customer engagement. To overcome these challenges, banks in Asia-Pacific are working to transform their often monolithic, rigid, legacy IT architecture to a more open architecture that provides the agility to deliver dynamic business needs. This enables them to: 

Optimize operations by streamlining processes

Since a single customer record can have various finance-related transactions associated with it, banking systems based on application programming interfaces (APIs) can better service multiple activities associated with a single customer record. Banks can further improve operational efficiency by deploying an API integration tool, which connects externally facing APIs with the internal banking APIs and systems of record. It transforms and directs incoming API requests to the appropriate endpoint within the IT environment, allowing changes to the back-office without impacting customer engagement services.

The issuing of digital banking licenses and introduction of online-only financial institutions in the region have raised the expectations of banking services of today. With banking customers in the region preferring digital channels to interact with their providers, incumbent banks in Asia-Pacific will have to find ways to address these needs by looking at their IT infrastructure to support and enable their business model.

Additionally, banks can leverage microservices to expose individual functions, facilitating new service implementation as well as existing service updates. A microservices-based architecture can help banks better integrate their services into their partners’ platforms to deliver more services to customers. Since microservices can be reused, they also flexibly support and maintain production services by removing single points of failure in end-to-end flows. To reap the full benefits from microservices, they should be coupled with containers, which enable the portability of decisioning systems, across hybrid cloud environments.

Consistently deliver good customer experience in a standardized way despite changes in the business

Banks were initially built based on the branch office model, and were later supported by call centers and digital channels. These changes call for the IT architecture to be enhanced so that IT can effectively support new business models. However, there might be cases where IT architects missed integrating IT enhancements or new channels with existing operations, leading to data silos.  

This is where standards, which can be critical for processing within the back office, can help. They are able to provide a foundation for a uniform system blueprint that gathers more detailed and consistent customer data that can be more easily combined across different transactions and banking channels. Since banks do not have the luxury of shutting down operations to rebuild, applying consistent standards across the board helps to more easily modify processing while still running and maintaining established levels of customer support. API implementation and reuse from shared catalogs can help to enforce adherence to standards and accelerate delivery.

Support business agility through continuous delivery

As change is the only constant, banks need to be able to rapidly develop and modify servicing logic, business rules, and predictive models to adapt to changing customer demands, comply with new regulations, and respond to new competitive offerings. A modern, microservices-based architecture can help banks gain that agility by enabling them to adopt continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) so that they can build, deploy and manage apps quickly. 

Open source will be key to transforming the back-office

As more banks are embarking on the modernization journey to simplify IT, they are harnessing open source solutions to support customer engagement applications and deliver delightful customer experiences. According to The 2020 State of Enterprise Open Source: A Red Hat Report, 93% of IT leaders from the financial services industry globally said enterprise open source is important to their organization, and cited IT infrastructure modernization as one of the top three use cases for the technology. Respondents cited top reasons for using enterprise open source as being able to gain access to latest innovations and achieve higher levels of  security. 

Thailand’s Kasikorn Bank (KBank) is one bank that has benefitted from enterprise open source. It tasked its tech arm, Kasikorn Business-Technology Group (KBTG), to update and optimize its IT infrastructure to ensure that its mobile banking app is feature-rich, user-friendly and reliable even as the user base grew. KTBG did so by deploying Red Hat’s open source solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform (JBoss EAP), Red Hat AMQ, and Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform.

Coupling the tech deployment with DevOps and agile methodologies, KTBG achieved the speed and scale KBank needed such that it can now handle 5,000 transactions per second. The open, modern IT architecture also enabled KBank to easily connect with its business partners’ systems to deliver more features on its mobile banking app, and provided a responsive, reliable application environment that reduced application development time from one month to two weeks. All in all, the changes that are reshaping the financial services industry offer established banks in Asia-Pacific opportunities to adopt technology that can increase their competitiveness and agility. In response to this, banks in the region have enhanced many of their customer-facing front-end operations with digital solutions. However, the front-office experience only makes up a small part of the entire process. Most of the servicing happens on the back end, often using numerous manual touchpoints that are rarely exposed to customers. Having a digital banking platform built on enterprise open source can help banks simplify IT and break down barriers between the customer engagement and back-office teams. With a stable yet flexible platform that can scale and adapt, banks can deliver a streamlined and frictionless customer experience that meets their expectations, therefore cracking the code to becoming successful digital banks that can compete effectively with new entrants.

Business, Contributed

Pandemic Outcome for Small Businesses: Why It’s Time to Change Attitudes Towards Technology

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Small businesses are some of the most represented in many countries, employing millions of workers and making a huge contribution to the global economy. In fact, they represent around 90% of the business population and more than 50% of employment worldwide. In recognition of the sector, the General Assembly of United Nations declared June 27 a Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day to “raise public awareness of their contribution to sustainable development”. Such initiatives become even more relevant today, when many small companies face challenging times due to the pandemic. With small businesses looking to get going again, now is the time to take on board lessons learned and improvements that can help organizations move forward.

Technology as one of the key factors for survival

To adapt to the new reality, businesses have been strongly advised to adopt and embrace new technologies so they can continue to operating effectively during the COVID-19 lockdown. That meant introducing new digital tools for collaborative working or specific ones for online sales for example, to enable effective remote working while maximizing productivity. Indeed, according to a survey from the Connected Commerce Council, 76% of small enterprises in the US said they rely more on digital tools than before the pandemic and that without their use, a third would have had to close part or all of their business.

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However, the attitude towards technology implementation is not uniform: some companies do not feel ready to adopt digital services and are reluctant to accept changes, even when operating under normal circumstances. Any halt to normality, or a crisis, can highlight the value of deploying new technology. I don’t mean dramatic innovations like the implementation of artificial intelligence or the Internet of Things. I’m talking about using technologies that facilitate operations, such as cloud-based or more convenient software.

Expectation of cloud adoption versus reality

Although cloud and SaaS are still buzzwords and their adoption rates considered high, many small businesses of up to 250 employees still use on-premise solutions. According to a survey from Analysys Mason, cloud-based applications are the top priority for these businesses, and 60% of them are planning to increase spending on cloud services. However, the survey also revealed that on-premise solutions still dominate in all types of services – including productivity, procurement, and business management software, among others.

The COVID-19 lockdown revealed the extent to which companies are ready to move the entire office to work remotely. Those that only have on-premises infrastructure may have struggled, as their IT administrators would not have had the tools or knowledge to manage employees’ desktops remotely.

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Uncertainty, risks and compliance issues, and a lack of resources are all common reasons to resist making the move to cloud solutions. Lack of resources in particular is cited time and again, with IT managers of small and medium companies often having to maintain their infrastructures on a very limited budget or without any at all. With many businesses currently more focused on meeting immediate demands, it is understandable for strategic visions to be put on hold. But, as soon as the crisis is over, it will be important to bring back priorities and make adjustments to IT operations according to lessons learned.

Resistance to change

Sometimes, even small changes – such as software improvements that are designed to simplify usage – are met with mistrust.

Let me give you an example from our experience at Kaspersky. We regularly update our product features and functionality to enhance the user experience, such as, turning processes from manual to automatic to simplify security management. However, customers get used to manual actions and our support team often receives feedback asking for features to return to the previous way of working.

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For example, in older versions of our endpoint security product for Windows, there was an option to manually manage a security application update, run and stop it. In later versions, a seamless upgrade was introduced to reduce the number of manual operations for IT administrators, meaning there was no ‘update’ button any more. The updates rolled out automatically when it was necessary, even when no one was working on a device.

Our product support team received dozens of requests from customers about this update, as they believed the product worked incorrectly. Most of the requests included questions like where to find the manual function, how to use it in the new version, why it has disappeared, and how to bring it back. As well as a reluctance to change, this reaction also highlights a key lesson for us as a vendor: all improvements should be explained to customers very carefully so they understand and buy into the benefits.

Change is scary but inevitable

COVID-19 has brought huge challenges for many small businesses. But if there is one positive to take from the situation is has to be the readiness for changes. All of the examples highlighted above are not only about taking a conscious decision to move to the cloud or a new way of working. It is about making a change to your overall mindset. Businesses should be open to new ways of doing things, especially if it simplifies their work. Changes don’t need to be wholesale, but small ones that make daily routines that little bit easier. During challenging times – like the one we are experiencing – when businesses have to transform on the fly in order to survive, this mindset will serve them well. I personally hope that the current crisis will never be repeated, but it’s always better to be prepared for anything that might come your way.

Business, Contributed

Why Technology is The Key to Malaysia Overcoming the Fallout from COVID-19

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Despite its developing economy, Malaysia is still prone to instability and disruption, both natural and man-made.

The ongoing pandemic has shown us that, but it has also raised another concern – how do businesses continue to manage and maintain operations when staff are unable to physically access the workplace or technical facilities, and yet are still required to be ‘present’ and productive by their employers?

In the long term, the solution will require a change in mindset, organisational behaviour, and a new way of doing business. However, in the short term, technology can help.

Technology steps up in time of need

As millions of workers remain isolated, the pivotal role of technology and how it helps keep the country’s economic engine running has been pushed into the spotlight.

Over the past few turbulent months, a range of software, solutions and applications have ensured that prescient businesses continue operating while navigating the recent unpredictability and uncertainty.

Without a doubt, cloud technology has helped. The adoption of public, private and hybrid cloud services provided access to, and availability of, critical data.

At the same time, the transition from hardware-based to software-defined infrastructure has meant that physical access to offices, tech facilities or datacentres is no longer required and central operations can be handled remotely or by a skeleton staff. Thus, the heart of many organisations has continued pumping.

A truly mobile workforce

VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) and DaaS (Desktop as a Service) are perfect examples of how technology is keeping businesses across Malaysia and Asia running. VDI is a cloud-hosted desktop normally located in an on-site datacentre and operated and maintained by in-house IT personnel.

The advantages of VDI is that it provides the ability to customise and control the on-site hardware and environment – ideal for companies with highly sensitive data. The flexible infrastructure can also be easily expanded incrementally. This is an optimal solution in the face of unforeseen demand surges we have all experienced recently.

That said, the true benefit for the enterprise is that it provides mobility and flexibility for personnel without compromising business security, productivity or performance. VDI allows employees to work from anywhere, on any device with secure and complete access to their work desktop, files and network.

At the height of the Hong Kong unrest, the city’s financial giants used VDI to maximise the safety of their staff, avoiding unpredictable and hazardous commutes, and allowing them to operate safely and securely at peak capacity.

DaaS on the hand is a fully outsourced solution providing a virtual desktop. It neither relies on, nor consumes, any internal hardware. It provides the same flexibility, safety, security and access as VDI – but it is fully handled by a third-party cloud provider and hosted on their cloud.

A software-based future

Together, VDI and DaaS provide Malaysia’s businesses with a simple and accessible option for ensuring their staff remain productive and efficient no matter where they are physically located. The two models are set to become central pillars of the nation’s business survivability strategy as companies seek to mitigate future risk and disruption.

For those businesses caught with an isolated workforce, there is affordable, accessible and immediate relief at hand. 

As VDI and DaaS are cloud-based solutions, virtual workspaces for teams, customers, or partners can usually be up and running in under an hour. Isolated staff can then have safe and secure access to any application simply from their home web browser, with no software download or upgrade required. It is almost as simple as point and click.

For Malaysia’s intelligent businesses, their prudent approach in a volatile region is already paying dividends.  For the rest of the country’s companies, the sooner we all embrace the modern tools we require to keep our staff safe, mobile and productive, our business resilient to disruption, and our economies growing in turbulent times, the sooner we will secure our future. It is up to all of us to ensure Malaysia continues to play a leading role in ASEAN’s future success.

Business, Contributed, Lifestyle, Mobile, Social Media

Parenting Digital Natives

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*This article is contributed by Nana Murugesan, Managing Director, International Markets, Snap Inc.*

Parenting the next generation always raises a new set of challenges as well as opportunities. After all, new parents are raising their children in a world that is very different from the one they experienced in their own childhood. Over the past couple of decades, technology has also changed things more fundamentally with parents today raising a generation who at times can feel as if they are speaking an entirely different language to them.

In his 2001 paper “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” the author Marc Prensky said that the rapid arrival and dissemination of digital technology at the turn of the century has created a generation of digital natives who have grown up immersed in technology and who are separated from the generations before who have come to learn technology.

Today’s parents face the challenge of parenting digital natives in a rapidly evolving world that their children understand and adapt to far better than themselves. But while it can sometimes feel like they are inhabiting different worlds, there are ways in which parents can bridge the gap.

Celebrity parents such as Reese Witherspoon and Julianne Moore have realised that Snapchat is a cool way of communicating with their teenage children. The platform can be part of any parent’s digital set up to maintain and develop an intimate relationship with their digital native offspring

Understand their thoughts to understand their actions 

A study conducted by Snap Inc, The Friendship Report[1], explored friendships in four distinct age generations, from Gen X to Gen Z. While both Millennials and Gen Zs can be classified as digital natives, there are some key differences in how they interact and present themselves in the (digital) world.

From The Friendship Report, 37% of Gen Z in Malaysia was found to be more selective over the people they let into their close circle of friends, as opposed to Millennials, who are comfortable sharing intimacies beyond the borders of their close friends.

This is also reflected in differing preferences for social and messaging platforms. While social networks are built to curate a digital representation of one’s self, Snapchat’s emphasis on privacy by design offers the ability to control who has access to your Snaps, is one of the reasons Gen Z’s prefer it over other, more public, platforms. Local Gen Z (27%) are more reluctant than Gen Y (56%) to share life updates publicly on Facebook.

At Snapchat, we have put a great deal of thought into how to empower young people to engage creatively, safely and positively with their close friends when online. Our app was built with privacy at its core — starting with ephemerality — and designed to combat the online popularity contests fuelled by other platforms. In line with that, Snapchat was deliberately designed to be free from public vanity metrics such as likes, comments or shares. Our focus is on creating fun and surprising experiences that make snapping with your best friends fun. We strongly believe that there are different types of screen time and that we should be judging quality and not quantity.

Get on their wavelength

While the familiar trope of parents attempting to be fun, hip or cool will outlast us all, there are ways to learn and understand your digital native’s language. One way is to meet them as an equal and show understanding, which begins with putting away judgement and nostalgia about “the way things were”.

One of the best ways to get to know someone is to find an activity to share. While Snapchat’s audience is predominantly made up of Millennial and Gen Z digital natives, there’s plenty to interest everyone, not just the teens. Create an account and explore the messaging app, which offers entertainment via Discover and Snap Games, and AR experiences through Lenses. Why not move your family group chat over to Snapchat, so you can discuss and celebrate genuine, private family moments with full control over what gets shared outside the group?

Things they don’t teach you in school

In today’s day and age where information is available at the tap of a finger, we have access to high resolution videos of the highest highs, and the lowest lows of humanity. It’s important not to be overwhelmed, and to tackle this anxiety-inducing state of affairs by educating ourselves and our children. Teach them to be discerning consumers who critically assess the information they gain over the internet. One key step is in learning to be discerning when choosing news outlets, which is a lifelong practice.

Discover is a curated platform, with shows and news coming from trusted news sources, and what you are served isn’t based on friends activity – preventing the widespread dissemination of fake news, or creating an echo chamber.

Parenting often involves having one foot in the present and another in an unknown future. While all parents want the best for their children, we can learn to be nimble, and collaborate with our digital natives. Along the way, they might teach us a thing or two about this brave new world, though they can’t imagine a time before cellphones were a gateway to the rest of the world.

Contributed, Health

Bringing Intelligence to Medical Devices and Machines

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is the science and engineering of creating machines or computer programs that can sense, reason, act, and adapt to come up with solutions for problems. As this definition shows, AI in itself is not a solution but rather a set of methods from which solutions can be developed.

Amongst the benefits of AI is its ability to imitate human cognitive behavior by analyzing data and its surroundings, solving or anticipating problems and self-learning to adapt to a variety of tasks.

Globally, healthcare systems are facing various challenges. This includes an ever-increasing aging population[1], escalating healthcare costs, operational inefficiencies, staff shortage, value-based reimbursements, higher percentage of deaths accounting to chronic illness, as well as an annual wastage of up to $750 billion on healthcare as seen in the United States alone. Against the background of these challenges, healthcare is also undergoing rapid digitalization.

For example, over the past decade, there has been an increase in growth of computational power, while the cost of data storage has dropped dramatically. As a result, the amount and quality of stored digital medical data has increased tremendously. However, there is a growing concern in healthcare that only a fraction of this data is being used to improve the quality and efficiency of care. The growth rate and diversity of medical data has far outpaced our ability to analyze it.

Recognizing this, Philips has developed intelligent solutions using these data and information on hand to help healthcare providers achieve improved health outcomes at a lower cost, while providing better staff and patient experience.

Philips Redesigning Medical Technology for Better

Philips offers a broad spectrum of solutions that spans the health continuum, from healthy living and prevention to diagnosis, treatment and home care; especially supported by its deep understanding in clinical needs, workflows, and regulations, as well as departmental and hospital workflows.

Spending approximately EUR 1.8 billion annually on R&D, innovation[2] is core to Philips’ growth strategy in health technology. In recent years, Philips has significantly improved its research in software and data science and today, almost one in every two of Philips’ R&D professionals focuses on the field of health technology.

On top of working closely with clinical partners across the globe – healthcare providers, academia, and hospital networks, Philips is among the top 5 healthcare IT companies with approximately EUR 3 billion in healthcare IT-related sales and has successfully developed the Philips HealthSuite Platforms, a digital framework that connects consumers, patients and healthcare providers in a cloud-based health ecosystem of devices, apps and tools.

Philips IntelliSpace Discovery offers an integrated AI solution that enables the entire process of generating new AI applications, providing data integration, training and deployment in the research setting.

Recognizing that public trust is paramount and understanding that health data is among the most sensitive types of personal data, Philips takes the growing risk of cybersecurity threats to its products very seriously. Security plans encompass people, processes and technology, with the goal of ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and availability of critical data and the systems that house that data.

How AI Can Help

Over the next decade, smart systems will be able to aggregate information from multiple sources that currently remain trapped in silos. For example, each individual patient’s data will be pulled together from the systems that are used in his/her GP surgery, hospital or specialist center, such as different Electronic Medical Records, diagnostic and monitoring solutions.

Today, slowly but surely, ASEAN countries are adopting AI and its elements to ensure systematic and efficient workflow within the healthcare industries.

Here is a quick look on how Philips is applying AI to address the challenges within healthcare industry:

  • Clinical informatics & decision support – Philips IntelliSpace Portal offers an advanced visual analysis and quantification platform that uses machine learning to learn about the clinician’s workflow. It then automatically configures the system to apply the appropriate processing to specific types of studies to speed up their analysis.
  • Acute care – Philips IntelliVue Guardian System with Early Warning Scoring (EWS) aids in identifying subtle signs of deterioration in a general floor patient’s condition at the point of care. IntelliVue Guardian automated EWS helps to reduce ICU transfers and readmissions, and adverse events.
  • Home care – Philips CareSage, a predictive analytics technology that helps prevent avoidable hospital admissions and emergency room visits among the frail and elderly and DreamMapper, a mobile app that allows people with sleep apnea to track their therapy progress so they can take an active role in their therapy. It is designed to quickly correlate data on therapy usage, mask fit and apnea hypopnea index (AHI) readings to help improve treatment success.

[1] www.nia.nih.gov/research/publication/global-health-and-aging/preface. Published October 2011. Updated January 22, 2015. Accessed August 1, 2015.

[2]https://www.philips.com/a-w/about/news/archive/standard/news/press/2018/20181108-philips-provides-update-on-performance-and-value-creation-journey-at-capital-markets-day-in-amsterdam.html

Contributed, News

Malaysians Have Been Searching for Everything from Condoms to Yoga Mats during the COVID-19 Pandemic

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Since early March, the high rate of COVID-19 cases in Malaysia has resulted in the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO) nationwide. Soon after the official announcement, panicked purchasing increased drastically resulting in most daily necessities being sold out in most places.

With most Malaysians aware of the prolonged duration of the MCO, consumers are turning to online market places to obtain necessities and equipment to enable them to work-from-home (WFH). Thus, we investigated the search trends of more than 900,000 iPrice Malaysia visitors. The data has shed light on a number of interesting and unexpected findings.  

The research was conducted by analyzing the online search behavior of close to 1 million visitors on iPrice Malaysia between 18 March 2020, when the MCO was first enforced, and 17 April 2020. All percentage increases displayed in this research were obtained by comparing the search impressions data with consumers’ online search behavior prior to the implementation of the MCO.

1. Satisfaction is important, but safety always comes first

In the medical supply category, it was unsurprising to see a 648% increase in search interest for face masks such as surgical masks & N95 masks. However, it seems like Malaysians are getting adventurous as there was also a rise in interest for sex related products such as sensual toys, vibrators, fertility test kits & condoms.

From their search behaviours, we saw the following percentage increase in interest:

  • 347% increase in searches for sensual toys & vibrators
  • 79% increase in searches for fertility test kits
  • 61% increase in searches for condoms

While it seems like Malaysian could be indulging in self love and even more adventurous exploits, this also shows that Malaysians are being more cognizant of family planning especially with the increase in searches for fertility test kits.

2. Malaysians are running out of patience with their overgrown hair

The MCO began in the mid of March & has been ongoing for more than 6 weeks. This also means that most Malaysians probably have overgrown hair and are looking for ways to take care of it.  

iPrice data reveals major increase in searches for trimming clippers. In fact, the increase was an averaged 17,652%! This trend can also be seen throughout various social media platforms, where people has been sharing the results of their DIY haircut attempts.  

3. The MCO is potentially breading more MasterChefs

Malaysians are probably tired with packaged and delivered foods. As a result, they are turning to more home cooked food. Data reveals high interest in appliances such as bread makers, mixers, air fryers and ovens suggesting that people are showing interest in experimenting with various recipes.

This is supported by the increase in searches related to appliances including bread makers (7,587%), stand mixers (3,048%), ovens (1,058%) and air fryers (2,029%).

4. Malaysians Prefer the Nintendo Switch during the pandemic

The inability to go outdoors may have led to excessive boredom. As such, people are looking for ways to stay entertained at home. This could be driving the an increased interest in gaming. Data shows high search interest for gaming items such as the Nintendo switch, Animal Crossing game & board games such as Monopoly.

Nintendo’s latest game, Animal Crossing , saw a 17,427% increase in interest, while the Nintendo Switch saw an average increase of 1,064%. Board games, on the other hand, saw a 4,336% surge in interest among Malaysians.

5. Tablets preferred over laptops?

When it comes to preparing for WFH, Malaysians are probably looking to purchase tech that would allow them to be more productive; one would think that this would mean that they would be looking for laptops or PCs. However, the data indicates otherwise. In fact, it shows that Malaysian are turning more to tablets. On average, searches for tablets saw an increase of 1,125%, while laptops recorded a 299% increase.

This would suggest Malaysians are probably getting tablets for work or entertainment activities.

6. Staying fit indoors

Like many others on the internet, it seems that Malaysians are also worrying about gaining weight from being cooped up at home for too long. It’s all over social media! More people are showing an interest in working out at home. This is reflected in the data, there was a surge in searches for exercise equipment such as skipping ropes (4,528%) and yoga mats (2,016%).

Research methodology

Data featured in this study were obtained by aggregating thousands of product pages of more than 150 online merchants through https://iprice.my/. Data on the increase in searches were analyzed by comparing the impressions data recorded from March 18 – April 17, 2020 as compared to February 16, 2019 – March 17, 2020.