KUALA LUMPUR--The Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) is booming as a location for multinational customer and operational support services.
An increasing number of companies are looking at the MSC as a regional or global base for such services, and their presence would add to the MSC’s lustre as a host for international support services facilities like data and call centres.
Energy, Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Amar Leo Moggie said that the MSC’s infrastructure and incentives given to MSC-status companies have been a major carrot.
“We have provided some of the most attractive incentives found in the region in order to ensure the country’s competitiveness as a regional and global data centre,” he said last week at the opening of Scicom Sdn Bhd’s new call centre.
He added that the MSC currently hosts 11 multinational companies that operate data or call centres. These companies include DHL, Shell and British American Tobacco.
Many of these facilities are in Cyberjaya. The presence of big names has likely been a key factor in attracting more foreign interest. According to the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC), five new companies were given MSC-status this year to set up their own data or call centres, and to provide outsourcing services in those areas.
The companies include the local IT operations of conglomerate Cargill and banking giant HSBC.
Cargill plans to operate an ERP development and support centre, a telecommunications and IT hub, as well as a voucher-processing centre, while HSBC will set up a group service centre that would serve a variety of functions including financial services processing, a call centre and a contingency centre.
Indian IT services company Satyam and performance car makers BMW are set to follow suit.
The presence of these companies and others to come is expected to drive demand for outsourced data and call centre services.
Outsourcing call centre services company Scicom announced its plans to open a facility in Cyberjaya at the same time that it launched it latest centre last week.
Scicom chief executive officer Kent Yearsley said the centre was needed in view of “projections showing further growth”.
The Cyberjaya call centre would be the company’s fifth call centre in the country. It is scheduled to be launched next year and would take the company’s total capacity in Malaysia up to 1,500 seats, Yearsley said.
Scicom’s latest US$1.5mil (RM5.7mil) centre currently handles Nokia’s Careline customer support operations for nine countries in the Asia Pacific region. The countries include Malaysia, South Korea and New Zealand.
Yearsley said the rapid capacity expansion was required to meet demand from “two or three new customers”.
The rising demand is expected to give a strong boost to outsourced service providers like Scicom.
Moggie said the outsourcing contact centre industry was forecast to grow to RM182mil this year and to RM227.2mil next year, up from RM144.4mil last year.
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