Recently, a report noted that Malaysia’s homegrown innovators are cultivating tech-driven ecosystem, thereby pushing the nation’s Industry 4.0 agenda.
OpenGov Asia covered this is in a three-part series; Part I can be found here.
Part I covered how one start-up in the region is creating safer roads via an app and how another SME is helping Malaysia’s struggling Millennials find better housing conditions. It is clear that new talent in the country is leading the way to a tech-driven era, and there are more!
Using tech to make better HR decisions
Perhaps the most visible gauges how well a company will perform is its capacity to digitalise its data.
While most large corporations have the resources to implement Enterprise Relationship Planning (ERP) solutions, the majority of SMEs in this region often use outdated manual HR practices involving tons of papers which are cost inefficient, time ineffective and are definitely not great for the environment. Moreover, there is greater susceptibility to human error.
Therefore, to address this issue, a digital HR system provider is helping to fill in the gaps by automating all administrative work. This means that the firm helps to seamlessly connect all HR information, including employee onboarding, core HR, leave application, payroll, and benefits administration, in an efficient manner.
While the tech evolution of HR systems is not new, what differentiates the start-up is its “freemium” business model, which allows users to register and use the solution for free and without any time lock.
The firm democratises its HR system in two ways: first, the platform runs on the Web without the need to pay for any licenses, hardware, or maintenance fees—making it perfectly accessible to both large enterprises and small businesses. Secondly, it allows everyone in a company to use the software in an instead of just HR admins.
The only time the product is monetised is when satisfied customers choose to add on to the range of services they want from the firm, and can then decide to unlock premium features.
Since the start-up is an all-in-one HR platform, the premium package integrates the payroll and the benefits platform, promoting full transparency for both admin and employees.
In addition to helping SMEs cut costs and save time, the Malaysian start-up administers its HR system to the global standard user experience.
To fully compute a company-wide payroll system, the automation takes about 10 minutes to produce results.
Using tech to enable lifelong learning and human development
Advanced industrialization is transforming and reshaping all levels of economy. Thus, it is necessary to ask the right questions in terms of the changing workforce.
For example, how will working be different? How will the meaning of ‘employability’ shift? How will ‘gig economies’ change the way small and large companies hire? How is it possible to close the gaps between education and employability? How can valuable talent data be obtained to construct meaningful pictures of future workforces? How can individuals be helped to become self-driven lifelong learners?”
These are all critical questions raised by a Malaysia-based tech start-up, a learning analytics company.
The start-up has the capability to manage talent development from education to employability with a focus on preparing national workforces for the ever-changing demands of what is known as the 4th Industrial Revolution.
The firm essentially provides a suite of products, services, and solutions augmented with technology to power human development and promote lifelong learning.
With their analytics system, the firm helps its clients with a range of issues including the implementation of improved recruitment and hiring solutions, talent management, and executing large-scale upskilling and re-skilling programs.
The CEO and founder of the firm noted that the company helps clients obtain data out of silos to help solve problems. Good examples of the kinds of problems the firm typically help solve include locating top talent to drive the growth of emerging industries, or helping find the local talent to secure direct foreign investment in key industry sectors.
In addition to what the talent pool looks like currently, clients need to know where to find potential talent. The firm believes that the best way to answer problems posed by advanced industrialization is through better hiring, smarter learning, and evidence-based outcomes.
While the firm is maintaining a strong focused on the ASEAN region, it is rapidly expanding to other parts of the world such as the Middle East and Latin America.