Share/Guide taking the lead to promote greater IT information exchange
The Communications and Multimedia Deputy Minister with Share/Guide Council members. (Back row L-R): Silverlake Axis’ Chang Kok Khoon, Share/Guide Program Director Woo Yuen Seng, RHB’s Noor Farini (Share/Guide’s Asst. Secretary) RHB’s Jamilah Jamaluddin (Share/Guide’s Treasurer), Tenaga Nasional’s Azman Zakaria, Genting’s Dato’ Sri Kay, UOB Bank’s Mohd. Farris Khairuddin, Syarikat Takaful Malaysia Keluarga’s Linda Yap (Share/Guide’s Secretary), CSI Interfusion’s Soo Mei Ling. (Front row L-R): Takaful Ikhlas’ Nazrul Hisham Abdul Hamid (Share/Guide’s Chairman), the Deputy Minister Eddin Syazlee, Genting Malaysia’s Jimmy Wong (Share/Guide’s Vice Chairman).
At the sidelines of Share/Guide’s 2018 annual conference and ICT awards, its chairman Nazrul Hisham Abdul Hamid pointed out that despite being established in the industry for 30 years, the association only has 66 members. He said, “I think there is something not right.”
In light of this, the IT Users Association has decided to open up to vendors, but Nazrul also cautioned, “Vendors should not be the composition of Share/Guide members. We want pure IT users.”
It was also pure IT users who comprised at least half of the speaker line up for the two-day conference – spokespeople from organisations like Genting Berhad, Tenaga Nasional, Permodalan Nasional Berhad, Takaful Malaysia, and Boustead Petroleum Marketing talked about the successful use of digital technologies in their respective organisations, and besides openly sharing best practices, they invited other members to approach them for deeper discussion and/or collaboration.
When officiating the opening of the event, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Eddin Syazlee Shith had shared that ICT contribution to the nation’s GDP is expected to increase to 17-percent from the previous 10th Malaysia Plan’s 13.1-percent.
“Therefore, it is imperative there should be a representative body in Malaysia representing IT users to provide the leadership required to play a bigger role in the nation’s economy planning, and Share/Guide association fits nicely into this role.”
He went on to congratulate the organisers for producing a conference that covered a variety of case studies from among Share/Guide members, and also for taking the lead in advocating and promoting success stories of digital implementations by its members, for its members.
“I would like to encourage Share/Guide to share these success stories with the general public as well for a wider coverage among IT users in our country.”
GLCs and more
Organisations like the Malaysian Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), Bank Negara, Telekom Malaysia and the Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) are some of Share/Guide’s members but the Deputy Minister called for more government-linked corporations (GLCs) to join the IT User Association.
Nazrul echoed this wish, and also added, “Moving forward we need more members from all industries be it from financial services, utilities and etc.
“If we grow this into a bigger scale, we can be an institution like MIA (Malaysian Institute of Accountant), a non-profit professional organisation where members can benefit because there is collective power to ‘dictate’ certain things.”
MIA is about a fraternity of accounting professionals from various industries. According to its website, “Presently, there are more than 35,000 members making their strides in businesses across all industries in Malaysia and around the world.”
Nazrul shared that Share/Guide has a similar objective and that it wants to engage with regional professional IT organisations with similar international outlook and connections.
“My expectation from this conference is to see members more proactively share about Share/Guide and encourage colleagues to become members and enjoy the benefits.”
The Share/Guide chairman does sees a role for vendors to play in the community, as being enablers who can complement IT users.
“Perhaps they can offer something new for organisations, but the voice (for Share/Guide) always belongs to the users’,” he emphasised.