IBM team provides digital roadmap to Pahang government

• IBM team worked with MPK to assess how it can develop practical, easy-to-implement solutions to engage its constituents
• Also worked with UMP to upgrade its educational program and guided IT Project Management Academy on 5yr commercialization plan

A TEAM of IBM volunteers has presented recommendations that the company said would enable the Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) and the Kuantan Municipal Council (MPK) in Pahang, Malaysia to formulate tangible strategies to improve their efficiency and engagement with the state’s people.
 
Following a month-long assignment in Malaysia, the team of 12 volunteers from Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Columbia, India, Mexico, Poland and the United States provided a digital roadmap that will allow both UMP and MPK to take advantage of the changing economic landscape in Pahang, IBM said in a statement.
 
Over the last 10 years, Pahang has grown to become among the key trade and tourism centers in the country, leading to greater demand from local authorities for more effective communication channels with local and foreign channels, the company said.

“IBM was able to help us identify how we can leverage technologies such as social media so that we can meet our key priorities for growth over the next few years,” said MPK president Zulkifli Yaacob.
 
The IBM team worked with MPK to assess how it can develop practical, easy-to-implement solutions to engage its constituents and ensure that MPK’s recruitment process reflected the state’s future ambitions to become a more socially engaged tourist hub.

The collaboration enabled the team to maximize the opportunities for knowledge transfer, ensuring ongoing skills development and enhancement for staff, which will ultimately help them continue to grow and succeed in the global marketplace.

The team also worked with UMP to upgrade the existing educational program at its IT Project Management Academy. The team guided the faculty to establish a refreshed six-month curriculum for IT project management as well as a five-year business plan to commercialize the university's ICT products, IBM said.
 
With UMP facing an impending budget cut of 30% by 2020, there is pressing need to step up efforts to extract a profit from an ICT offering that has historically been in the red, the company said.
 
The IBM team crafted a business plan that by 2020 delivers a return to the ICT Business Center of some RM6 million (US$1.9 million), or 10% of the UMP's funding gap. The team recommended spawning an independent commercial enterprise driven by financial and project discipline, and a focus on generating high customer value through the development of intellectual property.

“Our CSC (Corporate Service Corps) program (pic) serves to benefit the communities we work with, who gain by obtaining the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars in pro bono expert consulting services,” said IBM Malaysia chief financial officer Noorliza Abu Bakar.
 
Since its inception in 2008, the IBM CSC program has deployed more than 50 IBM volunteers to Malaysia to support a broad range of business, non-government and government organizations, and work on high-impact projects in Penang, Johor, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching.
 

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