Malaysia has long been one of the leading tech hubs in South East Asia, but as of late inflation has meant that the country has lost business to neighbouring Thailand. Companies are opting to use Thai IT firms due to the lower costs to set-up and run a new tech start-up in the Kingdom. With overheads for general everyday operations in Malaysia higher than the competition in Thailand, the Thai companies have been able to undercut Malaysian IT businesses.
Malaysia’s plan is to help IT businesses offer more sophisticated service by partnering up with IT firms in the United States. Malaysian companies will act as an additional support team for US IT companies offering better services, more English speaking personnel and 24/7 support.
The new move will help Malaysia to continue to establish itself as the go-to place for businesses looking to use the more affordable skillsets provided by Malaysian companies. What’s even more important when it comes to the development of Malaysia’s IT market is the possibility of how Malaysia could contribute to the US job market by sending skilled workers to the US or by offering remote support services from within Malaysia itself.
No one can blame Malaysia for being so ambitious and for wanting to beat its rivals, namely Thailand, as South East Asia’s number one IT hub. With all that being said, Malaysia will need to first fill its own shortage of IT personnel before serving the US as a press release on Hays, a global recruiting expert, Malaysia itself is short of skilled IT workers.
Take a look at the Hays press release here as it really does make for an interesting read. Then read on because actually if Malaysia does achieve its plans outlined in the rest of this news piece, then there is every chance that Malaysia could become the world’s IT hub.
Could Java Become An Optional Lesson In Malaysian Schools?
The government also plans to up the ante in its schools by providing US style IT curriculum for students. On top of this, to deal with the massive shortage of Java specialists there may even be plans for Malaysia to be one of the first countries in the world to introduce an option for students to take an additional class to learn Java development.
Right now much of this rumours, but imagine if Java became a lesson that students as young as 12 years old could partake in. By the time they are 18 and leave school, in theory, these students will proficient in Java and could take their skills to any IT company in Malaysia or even overseas as there is also a world shortage of Java professionals at this time.
How Will Malaysian Java Experts Serve US Partnerships?
The USA currently has a shortage in Java experts. A report released by Daxx the US software development job market is going to be almost half a million workers short of demand. Visit the Daxx report here. This means a partnership with the US for Malaysia could help the US to solve the predicted up and coming software engineer crisis.
According to supply and demand, we all know that the lower the supply the higher the costs of the service. Many US companies that need sophisticated IT systems to run on web interfaces in order to compete in their marketplace are often borrowing capital from banks in order to pay the hefty costs involved with Java platform designs.
With Malaysia’s plan to develop more Java specialists, these services could then be sold to US companies as part of an outsourcing agreement. The costs in Malaysia for a Java expert could be half as much as having to hire a Java expert in the US. Furthermore, this opens the doors for Malaysian businesses to offer an all-in-one II package in which other IT services such as network support, website maintenance, telephonic communications and VOIP support can all be bundled in.
Malaysia’s Leading Gaming Platforms In Need of Java Experts
One of Malaysia’s leading gaming platforms c9bets has said that they have often had problems hiring reliable Java support engineers. Most of the time they have to hire freelancers, who all have busy schedules due to the fact their Java skill set is such high demand.
The c9bets representative went on to say that some major projects can be delayed due to the lack of availability of Javascript engineers that specialize in the type of online real money gaming platforms that c9bets offers. You can visit their website here to get an idea of the mobile and desktop gaming that c9bets offers.
Will Malaysia’s Plan Work?
Obviously, the big question is will Malaysia be able to develop an IT-focused population that can serve both the interests of Malaysia and the US? Well, the answer is that anything is possible as long as the right people are involved in the process of setting up what is an ambitious but very viable plan. There are a few barriers the country will need to overcome.
Malaysia needs to improve its English classes and not just IT classes if it is to help the US fill its skills shortages. Malaysia is one of Asia’s most proficient English speaking countries. Conversely, it could be much improved. The bottom line here is that the minister in charge of educating Malaysians will need to not only focus on the introduction and improvement of its IT education programs in school, but also place additional emphasis on improving the students’ English skills.
If the country can improve its English and IT education, then Malaysia’s plan to serve the US as an IT hub for software engineers will most certainly work.
On the other hand, Malaysia needs to deal with its own software engineer shortage issues as reported in the South China Morning Post – visit SCMP Malaysia news report. The country is facing skills shortages of its own right now in the digital banking sector where system development is being slowed down by the lack of available software engineers. It is not like they can just poach software engineers from overseas either because the shortage that we have been talking about in this new report is, in fact, a global shortage.
Currently, Malaysia has a population of 31 million and the US a population of 325 million, so once plans are in full swing and Malaysia begins to produce new software engineers, it only has a small population to satisfy. Add the US population as a potential market to serve and Malaysia’s plans really do make a lot of sense. Learn more about the technology partnership between countries and nations, on this website: www.digital-polyphony.com