ICT services vendor sees growth opportunities

By JO TIMBUONG

KUALA LUMPUR: DUTCH information and communications technology (ICT) services and solutions provider Getronics NV sees opportunity for growth for the outsourcing business in Malaysia, especially during the current economic gloom.

Martin Gilday, its vice-president of global service centres, said most companies would likely be considering outsourcing certain business processes as a cost-cutting measure in order to weather the storm.

“We are offering a way to reduce operational costs in the current economic situation,” he said at a press conference after opening the Getronics Global Service Centre (GSC) in Plaza Sentral.

A subsidiary of KPN ICT Services, Getronics provides workspace management, application services, as well as consulting and transformation services.

The GSC will provide KPN’s clients in the Asia-Pacific region with a single point of contact for ICT remote services and support for workspace management.

This means technical experts at Getronics can help the clients with their IT support systems as effectively as onsite support personnel.

Jahangir Naina, managing director of Getronics Asia, said Getronics personnel have more to offer than regular onsite IT support staff.

“Our people are more skilful and are exposed to more technical situations than regular IT support personnel,” he said.

But this doesn’t mean onsite IT personnel are out of a job if their company opts to outsource.

“Such a company will still need onsite support staff to oversee the IT infrastructure within the organisation,” said Jahangir.

Setting up the 11,500sq ft GSC cost Getronics about 1mil euros (RM5mil) and this does not include the company’s investments in skills development and training for the GSC personnel.

The centre has 200 seats now and Getronics hopes to increase that to more than 500 over the next 18 months.