PETALING JAYA: Digital transformation goes well beyond business as it is a journey that involves collaborations with various parties to make it possible.

       It takes a customer-driven, digital-first approach to all aspects of a business, from its business models to customer experiences to processes and operations.

       Digital transformation uses AI, automation, hybrid cloud and other digital technologies to leverage data and drive intelligent workflows, faster and smarter decision-making, and real-time response to market disruptions.

       Ultimately, it changes customer expectations and creates new business opportunities.

       IBM Malaysia managing director Catherine Lian (pic below) said technologies like hybrid cloud and AI are better options in the current business environment as the imperative nature of these technologies allows everyone to operate, respond, and emerge stronger post-pandemic.

       “All businesses must be agile and resilient. Working with our customers, we see that they want flexibility to run their mission critical workloads across multiple platforms within the organisation.

       “An open IT architecture that can meet them where they’re at in terms of the IT infrastructure choices they’ve made and the various places they do computing – whether it’s in a public cloud, or a private cloud, or on-premises and provide orchestration, management and application portability among them to create a single, flexible, optimal cloud infrastructure for running computing workload.

       “Ultimately, what we are seeing today is data, not just software. The only way we know how to make sense of the phenomenal amount of data is AI, ” she said, adding that at IBM, they are thrilled about the potential of hybrid cloud and AI to transform businesses everywhere.

       Lian was speaking at an executive virtual roundtable session entitled “The Star X IBM’s CxO Virtual Dialogue: Unlocking the Power of Hybrid Cloud & AI for Digital Transformation” held recently, in conjunction with the live virtual conference Digital Financing: Powering a Ca$hless Economy and in commemoration of IBM Malaysia’s 60th anniversary. Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC) chief digital business officer Aiza Azreen Ahmad said the digital transformation needs to start from the mindset, the policy making, and that the understanding of digitalisation is the way to go.

       Together with other government agencies, MDEC has developed the cloud-first policy that can help the public and private sector accelerate the adoption of cloud and AI technology.

       She also noted that jargons used by professionals could scare the MSMEs away, hence a common shared language must be used to convince more businesses to be on board for digital transformation.

       “Language around digitalisation needs to change, it needs to be about sustainability rather than sophistication.”

       “We need to create a place for them to feel comfortable to come and talk about digitalisation, ” she said, adding that she hoped banks can assist the MSMEs by providing financing as it is a key barrier for the MSMEs to digitalise.

       Smart Modular Technologies general manager Vejay Kumar said the digital transformation is a journey which requires businesses to collaborate with different stakeholders.

       Smart, a global leader of speciality memory and storage solutions, collaborated with IBM to deploy the IBM Maximo Visual Inspection integrated with AI-powered collaborative robots (Cobots) to transform its operations into a cutting-edge manufacturing facility and to lead the Industry 4.0 agenda.

       With the new set of intelligent eyes and automation, IBM Maximo Visual Inspection helps to identify and isolate defective semiconductor components before they ripple into the next stage of processing, bringing quality control automation to Smart’s manufacturing process.

       “This highly digitised manufacturing operation is instrumental in enabling Smart to be highly productive, boost efficiency, and product quality, ” he said.

       Bank Islam chief executive officer Mohd Muazzam Mohamed (pic below) said upskilling employees is crucial.

       Bank Islam Mohd Muazzam Mohamed

       “In the digital transformation programme, we need to address not just digital excellence but also focus on operational excellence and culture excellence especially in upskilling our people.“Our journey started earlier in 2019, under our company wide transformation programme, Code21.

       “We are building the whole proposition leveraging on next generation technology to enhance our customer experience, ” said Muazzam.

       He stressed that the bank’s business is built on trust and they need to ensure the same level of stability and control, especially the custody of data.

       “We believe the hybrid form (of cloud system) would be more appropriate in response in time considering the regulation we need to adhere to in Malaysia, ” he said.

       Star Media Group senior news editor Asohan Aryaduray who moderated the session, concluded that key partnerships is important to leverage emerging technologies like hybrid cloud and AI capabilities to redefine an organisations’ transformation and to help the public and private sectors build the foundation for a new era of technology and driven by data, cloud and AI, together with society to accelerate the digital transformation.