Microsoft is partnering with the government in the latter's digital transformation journey
THE way we live has been significantly transformed in the past couple of years, and it is the same with the way governments operate today.
Microsoft Malaysia's general manager for the public sector group, Sheikh Manzoor Ghani, said the company is working closely with the government to ensure public-sector digitalisation grows strongly.
"As Malaysia strives to become a high-income nation, we will continue to work with and alongside the government by providing Malaysians with skilling, upskilling and reskilling opportunities to thrive in the digital era," he said.
Sheikh Manzoor said the World Bank has introduced a whole-of-government approach in modernising the public sector by promoting simple, efficient and transparent governance, besides emphasising citizen-centric and universally accessible public services with GovTech.
According to him, this is based on the same principle when the government started the MyDigital blueprint, outlining clear goals to transform the country into a digitally driven, high-income nation and a regional leader in the digital economy.
"In addition to upskilling the rakyat and digitising businesses, the blueprint also sets out goals to accelerate innovation in the public sector," he said, adding that among the targets set for the year-end included ensuring digital literacy in all civil servants, achieving 80 per cent end-to-end online government services and usage of cloud storage across the government, and establishing a cashless payment system in all ministries and government agencies.
GETTING ON THE CLOUD
Sheikh Manzoor said Microsoft has formed an alliance with the government by providing trusted cloud services, technology skills and industry expertise needed for the nation to successfully complete its digital transformation and further drive its competitiveness. This is the basis of the Bersama Malaysia pledge, which the company made alongside the Malaysian government last year.
"As part of our Bersama Malaysia commitment, we partnered with the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (Mampu) to support its target of taking our nation's government to the cloud.
"Together with another partner Enfrasys Solutions, we signed the Cloud Framework Agreement (CFA) to provide trusted cloud services to public sector agencies and realise our digital economy goals under the MyDigital blueprint," said Sheikh Manzoor, adding that the CFA is important as it enabled the creation of a comprehensive cloud network through a strategic collaboration between the public and private sectors.
"This bridges the government's cloud with public clouds such as Azure, creating a hybrid cloud ecosystem and empowering public sector agencies with access to leading-edge technologies, such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR), among others," he said.
The CFA will make it easier for public sector agencies to access transformative cloud-based solutions.
Some organisations like Sirim and Permodalan Nasional Bhd have already embarked on their cloud transformation.
Sheikh Manzoor said the country is still in the early stages of its journey with the cloud, but progress is being made. For the public sector to be the centre of GovTech innovation and accelerate transformation, the country needs to consider two key points of interest — cloud infrastructure and talent development.
Last year, Microsoft made a key announcement of the establishment of its first data centre region in Malaysia, which would lay the groundwork for a secure and reliable cloud ecosystem in the country with solutions like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, as well as Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform.
"The presence of a local data centre region not only allows for faster connectivity to cloud data, but also encourages the usage of the cloud to drive innovation," said Sheikh Manzoor.
According to research done by IDC, Microsoft's investment in Malaysia will generate up to US$4.6 billion in new revenues for Malaysia's ecosystem of local partners and cloud-consuming customers over the next four years, which will contribute to the creation of more than 19,000 direct and indirect jobs.