Ahmad Azhar Yahya or Azhar, as he is known, is the Chief Executive Officer of VADS Berhad, a subsidiary of Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM). He is fond of saying, “We don’t know what we don’t know,” to describe the vast potential of technology, whether applying it to develop new mobile applications, to make consumer electronics smarter or to make the internet faster. In this issue, Top 10 of Malaysia speaks with Azhar on VADS and his management of the company.
“A visionary like the late Steve Jobs of Apple created the products first before consumers even knew that they needed the gadgets,” Azhar begins. He also adds, “Who would have known that today we will need smart phones with cameras that can play video games from the Internet, show at street level what city in the world we are at, and enables us to talk with our loved ones who may be residing in a different part of the world.”
Azhar joined VADS via TM after spending 15 years at Accenture (formerly known as Andersen Consulting), where he last served as a Partner. He rose from the position of Group Chief Information Officer (GCIO) at TM, then heading the High Speed Broadband Project as the Program Director, before taking on the role as the current head of VADS.
VADS was formed by IBM Global Network Services and TM in 1991. When IBM exited, VADS became a wholly-owned subsidiary of TM and was listed on the Second Board of Bursa Malaysia in 2002 before it was transferred to the Main Board in 2005. VADS, which stands for Value Added Data Services, adopts technology and business processes to help companies achieve their business objectives. “TM provides VADS with connectivity anywhere in Malaysia or the world, while partnerships with leading companies globally, like Hewlett Packard, CISCO, MICROSOFT and IBM, make cutting-edge technology available for VADS to adopt for it to be an industry leader on a sustainable basis,” says Azhar.
“As an industry leader, VADS is usually leading the pack in terms of applying latest technologies and trends. The challenge that we face is mostly on educating our customers and the public in general on the benefits and effectiveness of these new technologies and trends,” adds Azhar.
VADS businesses are organised into two main categories: Integrated Managed ICT Services which includes Date Centre & Cloud Services, Communication & Collaboration Services, managed Security Services, End User Computing Services and Managed Network & Network Integration Services. Its second core business is the Integrated Managed Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) that comprise of Contact Centre Facilities, Customer Experience Management, Revenue Generation, Revenue Protection, Business Analytics and Insights and Business Excellence and Consultancy Services.
“Establishing and managing Data Centres (DC) was one of the key businesses in VADS,” Azhar continues. Reliable and up-to-date data are required by businesses and organisations to make prudent decisions. A DC will house increasingly powerful computers to manage enormous amount of data that has to be sent through ultra fast connectivity such as dedicated fibre optics line. “One major concern for DCs is security; which includes protection from intruders and theft, firewall hacking, natural disasters like fire and flooding, and power failure. VADS’ DCs have multiple levels of security protection. In 2016, VADS intends to build a purpose built DC in Nusajaya, Johor along with a twin-core DC in the Klang Valley with powerful Cloud Computing capabilities,” Azhar reveals.
One of VADS’ fastest growing business segments is the Managed Contact Centre or Call Centres. Most people have experience with call centres through their banks or telecommunications carrier. These call centres might seemed to be located in their city but most probably be located at a site where human capital and property costs are much cheaper than the home country. Therefore call centres could be located in a foreign country and in a different time zone. “Our call centre business in Indonesia has the quickest growth in the last few years for VADS and if this trend continues, Indonesia will rival Malaysia in the next few years in terms of size,” says Azhar.
On his management style, Azhar maintains an open door policy where any employee is free to drop by. He gives his managers free rein to execute their projects with no micro management and hold respective leaders accountable.
“In any company, people are its most valuable asset. But recruiting the right talent for VADS is increasingly difficult,” Azhar confesses. “People remain the single most challenging aspect of our business. The war for talent is becoming increasingly intense in recent years as organisations scramble to pick the best of the best to work for them. In VADS, we are able to offer great career opportunities for our employees, providing them with a comfortable yet challenging environment to grow. We are able to contain our churn rates to minimal (with the exception of the BPO business, which generally sees a higher churn rate as compared to other industries),” Azhar elaborates.
“We continuously provide training programmes to cater for industry needs and develop in-house activities as well as engagement programmes that help our staff achieve their career goals,” Azhar continues.
Talking about the future, Azhar has this to say: “Currently, TM and VADS control approximately 14% of the market. We hope that we will be able to increase our market share in tandem with the industry growth rate.
There are many different types of outsourcing initiatives in the market and customers need to choose one initiative that would work best for them. It is also important to choose a reliable and trusted partner for the identified initiative so that your focus remains on your core business.”