PETALING JAYA: Local enterprises are encouraged to capitalise on their proximity to advanced global business services (GBS) centres by embracing the technologies utilised by these hubs.

GBS and finance expert Joon Teoh said among the renowned multinationals that have established GBS centres in Malaysia are Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas), AstraZeneca, Novartis and Baker Hughes.

“They (Malaysia’s business community) are probably not aware that in our backyard, there are so many (GBS) centres that are using advanced technology, and they also employ good talent,” she told Bernama on the sidelines of AGOS GBS Summit 2023, organised by AGOS Asia, here, recently.

Teoh said GBS centres in Malaysia provide shared services using digital technology for global internal customers, such as finance, human resources, procurement, supply chain, and information technology (IT).

“Robotic process automation (RPA) is one of the technologies that are being employed by those GBS centres and it can also be adopted by the local business community to get rid of voluminous, repetitive and transactional work.

“RPA can help to free up people’s time for them to do more analysis work to improve productivity, savings, cash flow and so on. There is also a new technology, called process mining, which gives an organisation some real-time insights into some control areas that can identify fraud and also non-compliance,” she explained.

Teoh also said that the automation and digitalisation process in Malaysia has indeed accelerated after the Covid-19 pandemic but much more effort is needed as many enterprises are still considering cost as a significant barrier when it comes to the need for digital transformation.

“This is where local companies need to be clear about their decision criteria. Cost is one factor to be considered but what is more important is to create a holistic business case and think about the quantifiable or non-quantifiable value to the business.

“An example will be improved talent retention as staff sees an opportunity to upskill themselves on the automation curve,” Teoh, who is also AGOS Asia’s chief executive officer, said.

She said one of the reasons she started the summit in the early years was to make it a platform for the country’s local companies to join and learn from the multinational GBS players who are using high-end technology.

Source: TheSun