H3C Opinion: National Recovery Plan Vital in Helping Malaysian Accelerate Businesses Digitally During MCO 3.0

On behalf of H3C, the leader in digital solutions, we would like to share our thoughts on the National Recovery Plan (NRP), Malaysia government’s latest initiative to expedite the country’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Gradual release strategies are critical to maintain pandemic suppression under a new normal. Inversely, a hastened release would potentially trigger another wave, especially with variants appearing elsewhere in the world. We are very supportive of this plan and we believe it will help Malaysians to recover economically.

We concur with the prime minister that a carefully designed plan based on data and science will enable Malaysians to return to normal daily life. As the country is accelerating its national digital transformation with the MyDIGITAL plan, a recovery plan that is based on data and science is crucial to tackle the problems faced by the healthcare system and in the broader view, Malaysian businesses as well. On top of the ongoing vaccination plan, we remain hopeful that digitalisation efforts will be at the top of the agenda and will continue to accelerate across the country.

We are optimistic about the digital economy’s prospects following the announcement of the NRP. H3C is fully focused on accelerating the digital transformation of Malaysia and strengthening our relationship with our Malaysian partners which will play a crucial role in our exit strategy from the Covid-19 crisis in line with the NRP. The digital adoption will better equip society and businesses to navigate in the new norm, enabling sustainability and growth in the long run.

The effect of Covid-19 has been devastating but has given an ample opportunity for digitalisation, which would be a recovery tool post Covid-19. Even before Covid-19 the staggering growth of technology is dramatically affecting our societies and businesses landscapes around the world. In the field of science and technology, H3C is willing to actively participate in the MyDIGITAL plan, strengthen cooperation on the digital economy of Malaysia, upgrade the digitisation of trade, as well as encourage more technology-intensive enterprises to invest and operate in Malaysia.

Today, there are several new technologies that are little known by the public but are already beginning to impact how we live and conduct business. This adds to the complexity of a world in which it is challenging just to keep up with the innovations we do know about. Further complicating matters, many of these emergent technologies can also be combined, leading to exponential growth across multiple categories. Just to name a few of the important modern technologies that will greatly impact our world: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, Big Data, and Network Security.

Against the backdrop of the vigorous development of the global digital economy, the demand for digital and intelligent transformation has always existed and continues to grow for each industry in many countries around the world. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has made more industrial players recognize the urgent need for digital transformation. On the other hand, despite the fact that the pandemic will impose pressure on economic development, digital transformation will have a significantly positive effect on post-epidemic recovery, from the increase of employment, to industrial upgrading of enterprises.

If anything the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us, is that the fourth industrial revolution will accelerate the changes to businesses, whether big or small, and those that don't adopt will be left behind. As digital transformation is making headways around the globe, it is unsurprising that more companies are utilising digital technologies to innovate services, improve user experience and enhance operational efficiency.

How do we cope with these changes? The Malaysian authorities have consistently increased investment in ICT fields including big data and information security in recent years, aiming to support the digital transformation of local industries. Specifically, it promotes the systematic and comprehensive development of enterprises in talents, processes, and technologies, and advances business transformation and economic development. Embracing the digital economy will be key for Malaysia to maintain its competitive edge in the new global market.

The fact that Malaysia government recognises the digital contribution and the value of digital transformations, has helped us to install and drive H3C’s programme more clearly in Malaysia. Entering the Malaysian market in 2019, H3C has successfully certified more than 100 partners and at least 200 engineers. H3C has assisted SYABAS, now known as Air Selangor, in setting up and enforcing automated access and consistent security policies across networks easily using its Application-Driven Campus (AD-Campus) Software-Defined Networking (SDN) Solution. As a result, the state water department benefits from network deployment, service provisioning, network expansion and fault device replacement, all automatically implemented by a controller with several clicks, which considerably reduces the complexity and saves workload while improving efficiency.

One of MyDIGITAL’s objectives is to raise business productivity across all sectors by 30% by 2030, and for the digital economy to contribute 22.6% of GDP in Malaysia. All these high-level objectives require strong digital solutions partners to advise and bring solutions to customers and. H3C is ready to play its part in helping Malaysia realise it's MyDIGITAL aspirations in various sectors including government, education, healthcare, finance, and transportation.

We believe public-private partnerships will help further propel Malaysia’s digital economic growth forward. In this regard, it strives to help enable a digitally-enabled government and empower businesses to innovate and build resilience digitally.

Another case study is H3C’s partnership with one of the biggest hospitals in Malaysia in which the company deployed its Unified Infrastructure System-Hyper Converged Infrastructure (UIS-HCI) solutions at the hospital partner’s data center which provides full virtualization of their PACS/HIS system which helps their radiology department in storing patient diagnostic imaging files and medical records. In addition, the UIS-HCI solutions ensure that the process of medical imaging runs smoothly. Through this digital solution, H3C provides the hospital partner with cost-effective data storage, retrieval, management, distribution and presentation of medical imaging files.

Indeed, over the next few years, around the world, we will likely see exponential growth in the medical field due to the advances made possible by digital solutions, especially AI-powered technologies. Digital solutions in the medical field will help more people to be able to have access to high-quality health care, provide fast and efficient analysis of data for doctors and hospitals and enable patients to better track their own health.

Digital literacy

We are faced with the challenge of not only understanding these technologies, but also knowing how to use them well. For many years, literacy was the most valuable currency necessary to succeed in life. Within the last few years, however, digital literacy has become the primary skills needed to help people and by extension businesses achieve success.

At H3C we would argue that that in the short and long term, literacy in the important modern technologies that will greatly impact our world are Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing, Big Data, and Network Security, and a thorough understanding of the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution are the key skills that people need to develop.

Adding to this, the Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint 2021 highlighted that the digital economy will become the foundation of the modern economy, thus requiring skilled manpower to fulfil this national mandate.

As we learn new things, it is also important to share as much of this knowledge as we can with those around us. In that sense, we understand deeply the demand for growing digital solutions and the necessary knowledge sharing needed with local staff and employees and also our partners.

In Malaysia’s private sector’s efforts for business innovation and digitalisation, we at H3C will help our Malaysian partners with our expertise and our extensive experience having worked with companies in China and around the world.

We provide a comprehensive one-stop digital platform that includes cloud computing, big data, AI, industrial internet, information security, intelligent connectivity, new safety, and edge computing, as well as end-to-end technical services. To date, H3C has seven subsidiaries in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Pakistan and Kazakhstan.

RCEP Free Trade Agreement and building a prosperous partner ecosystem in Malaysia

Last November, 15 countries signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement, including 10 Southeast Asia countries and China, which increases partnership opportunities for H3C. The RCEP Agreement is designed to broaden and deepen ASEAN’s engagement with several countries. The objective of the trade agreement is to establish a modern, comprehensive, high-quality and mutually beneficial economic partnership that will facilitate the expansion of regional trade and investment as well as contribute to global economic growth and development in the region.

This is a staggering and unprecedented free trade agreement. The 15 member countries account for about 30% of the world's population (2.2 billion people) and 30% of global GDP ($26.2 trillion) as of 2020, making it the biggest trade bloc in history.

Under the RCEP agreement, Malaysia will be given a more prominent countryplace as the geographic core of the ASEAN, especially taking a lead in the digital economy in the regional market in the near future under the MyDIGITAL initiative. This move will continue to strengthen the cooperation between China and Malaysia, providing more opportunities for the development of H3C in the region, to promote digital solution engagement and adoption of higher levels of digital transformation.

In this regard, H3C is well adapted to Malaysia, we have helped many customers achieve their digital transformation. We have great confidence and high expectations in the development of Malaysia. We will continue to increase investment in the local market development and work closely with ecological partners to continue to optimize the Southeast Asian market layout to help local customers realize digital transformation.

Malaysia will be built into our Southeast Asian market hub to better serve our future international development. We do believe that based on the MyDIGITAL initiative, H3C can bring value, providing a full range of services from end-to-end integrated solutions to top-level design, together with our technology innovations, incorporating our experience and best practices to bring a smart future in Malaysia.

Ultimately, we want to share our many years of experience in facilitating digital infrastructure and providing comprehensive digital solutions to help accelerate digital transformation in Malaysia and Southeast Asia.