2012年8月22日星期三

Match functions with skill sets, says Dell Malaysia



CYBERJAYA (Aug 20, 2012): Information and communications technology (ICT) companies need to match the functions that they put in the country with the talent and skills that are available to reduce concerns about a shortage of qualified talent here, said Dell Global Business Centre Cyberjaya managing director Pang Yee Beng.

"ICT talent shortage becomes an issue when there's a mismatch, meaning that a company comes to Malaysia thinking that there's a large number of people with certain skill sets but later discovering that these skill sets are not available," he told SunBiz in an interview.

While Malaysia continues to draw ICT offshore operations, be they call centres or business process outsourcing, Pang said the function of operating cost will influence the success or implementation of an ICT centre, which is a more important consideration than a lack of talent that can be sourced from other countries.

In the area of ICT, he sees positions in IT security, forensic IT, voice-over-IP, networking, software development currently in high demand due to the global environment. "As e-commerce becomes more prevalent, IT security also becomes key to do business."

On its part, Dell Malaysia has several initiatives in place to overcome the skill shortage in the country as well as to build its own talent pool.

Pang said the company places emphasis on its people and invests in its human resources by focusing on brand leadership, people and talent development, providing incentives, training and development tools.
"ICT companies thrive on training people a lot as technology and skill sets move and change quickly. But most companies do it on an ad-hoc basis. We have consolidated our efforts with the setting up of Dell Malaysia University (DMU). In addition, there are internships for new and fresh graduates as well as professional hiring through talent acquisition team," he added.

Launched this month, DMU's objective is to create a learning organisation in Dell Malaysia to support the growth and transformation of Dell through competency enhancement, education enhancement, finance development/rotation programme and solutions certification. DMU offers industry recognised certifications and degrees through collaboration with local and foreign institutions of higher learning.

"This is to address the shortage of skill-set and overall enhance Dell Malaysia's reputation in the industry and the job market," said Pang.
He added that the internship programmes for fresh graduates are aligned with multiple higher institutions of learning to bring in final-year students to the company, and to provide them six to 12 months of industrial training. The interns will work on real projects, and after theit training, will enter the workforce, with some absorbed by Dell Malaysia.

The company has also formed a talent acquisition team to recruit top local talent who will strengthen its existing talent pool.

"The talent acquisition team is tasked to identify or shortlist talents even though there's no job opening in Dell Malaysia. Whether it's finance, sales, or marketing, we will have the talents' portfolios and profiles as we share our policy, structure and philosophy with them. When there's a job opening, we know where to go," said Pang.

Dell Malaysia's talent acquisition strategy includes launching the undergraduate public scholarship awards to nine universities identified based on Dell Malaysia's top talent profile analysis, university ranking, location, cost and course specialisation.

In terms of outreach, it also hosts career-related talks and student visits or delegations from both local and foreign universities and colleges.
"We actively engage and partner with organisations such as the Multimedia Development Corp, the Selangor Human Resource Development Centre, Bank Negara Malaysia and the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce on initiatives such as graduate attachment, entrepreneurship and skills enhancement programmes," said Pang.
Dell has been in Malaysia for about 17 years and employs 4,500 people in its global business centre in Cyberjaya and two customer centres in Penang.

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