PETALING JAYA: Long known as a mega telecommunications infrastructure player, Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) has set its eyes not just on software that is needed by enterprises as they migrate to the cloud, but also on core tech services and solutions that help organisations plan and migrate to the cloud as well as manage it.
What is interesting about this plan is that it entails the setting up of a brand new entity called Credence.
The unit is headed by a technology stalwart, who used to head the entire South-East Asian operations of software giant SAP.
Despite being a wholly owned unit of TM, Credence seems to be taking on a distinct look and feel. It’s website for example bears little resemblance to TM.
Hired late last year to head Credence, Singaporean Krishnendu Datta’s CV also includes him building a business funded by Goldman Sachs that does technology services business.
Krishnendu told StarBiz that once Credence gets to a decent size, it will only make sense for the entity to invite other strategic shareholders into Credence.
KrishDatta_CEO_Credence
Credence’ focus is to drive digitisation for enterprises by providing them with end-to-end solutions and services.
“Enterprise digitisation is to take a company’s applications and modernise it, by taking its on-premise software and moving it to cloud,” Krishnendu said.
This includes taking the parts that work on the cloud, redeveloping the portions that do not work on the cloud, finding the gaps, giving an access solution and helping enterprises manage their data and analytics, explained Krishnendu.
He added that at present, TM’s business-to-business offerings come under TMOne where the goal has been to create value for businesses through digital enablers. For its financial year 2021, TMOne recorded a revenue of RM3.5bil.
However, Krishnendu explained that a deeper look will show that only a small percentage of that revenue comes from what he referred to as a “deep technology play”.
This he said is due to the fact that telco’s around the world have always been focused on the provision of infrastructure and services around that.
However, TM via Credence is looking to take advantage of changes taking place in the business world.
“There is a tsunami taking place in the technology space, where enterprises are moving their on-premise workload and software to the cloud. We aim to ride on this phenomena,” added Krishnendu.
He also noted that enterprises need to move to the cloud as it brings down costs, enhances the access and availability of their business applications and lowers workflow risks.
In addition, the next generation of enterprise applications are all written on the cloud.
Credence, he said should be able to grow its business by 10 times over the next five years.
On finding the skill sets required, Krish said Credence would take the available pockets of competencies in TMOne as well as hiring new professionals.
“In Credence, we are bringing some partnerships exclusively into Malaysia,” Krishnendu added.
Credence has partnerships with hyperscalers such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
Krishnendu also noted that Credence is “cloud-neutral”.
“There are different cloud offerings that have different strengths.
“The idea is for Credence to offer its customers the best suited cloud solutions for their business”.
To kickstart, Credence will be targeting the digitisation of Malaysian companies because Krishnendu believes they are the ones that have fallen behind.
Meanwhile, he believed that there are hardly any local competitors because it is an end-to-end solution provider while noting that it will be competing with mostly foreign companies.
Currently, Credence has 135 staff and the company is looking to hire more people.