SAP anticipates more policies in Budget 2018 to spur digital economy

File photo for illustration purposes

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 24: Over the past years, Malaysia has been driving headlong on its journey towards becoming a high-income knowledge-based economy. Accordingly, policies implemented in previous budgets have seen the ICT industry as a whole taking incremental steps towards a unified vision of achieving a fully connected digital economy.

The Digital Economy already contributes more than 18 per cent of Malaysia’s GDP currently.

In a statement SAP Malaysia said it is keenly looking forward to more policies that would further catalyse the Digital Economy when Budget 2018 is announced this Friday.


“The government’s commitment to digital adoption has positively impacted industries and rakyat,” said SAP Malaysia managing director Terrence Yong.

“Its initiatives, particularly in the areas of e-commerce, talent development and rakyat programmes such as eRezeki and eUsahawan have proven to be great successes for Malaysia,” said Yong, who is looking forward to continuation of such initiatives.

“The establishment of the Digital Free Trade Zone (DFTZ) is also visionary and encourages local companies to market their products beyond Malaysian shores. Hopefully, Budget 2018 will have additional components to help DFTZ grow more rapidly before maturing with a holistic ecosystem,” he added.

Meanwhile, Yong also said that, although there is now greater awareness of Big Data and Data and Analytics in business, there must be greater emphasis on how crucial those areas are in a strategic sense – not only for companies, but to also further sustainable social outcomes, especially amongst today’s digital generation.

“SAP’s sustainability commitment is based on the belief that social, environmental, and economic activities and performance are interrelated – each creating tangible impacts on the others. Our efforts focus on creating a sustainable future for SAP, our customers, and society,” said Yong.

“From the corporate perspective, SAP is committed to making local enterprises more sustainable,” added Yong, citing the case of Cenviro, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Khazanah Nasional, which is digitising its operations with the aim of becoming a regional champion in delivering environmental solutions.

Cenviro is deploying multiple SAP solutions to facilitate business process simplification and improve decision making. The first phase includes an industry specific utilities solution called “SAP Suite on S/4 HANA with IS-U for Waste Management” which incorporates best practices for waste management within an integrated system. — Bernama