Business

Monday September 8, 2008

Cornerstone to make waves in Malaysia

By SURAJ RAJ


It will expand business intelligence consulting services locally

SINGAPORE-BASED business intelligence (BI) and analytic applications (AA) consulting and services firm Cornerstone Asia Pte Ltd believes it now has the muscle to engage the growing BI and AA market in Malaysia.

The company, which was formed in March through the merger of The Analytics Co and Accel Solutions, has more than 80 enterprise customers worldwide and offices in seven countries, including France and Britain.

“We’ve been in Malaysia for a number of years but we’ve operated in a small way. We’ve put in time and effort in building our activities here over the past four months, including expanding our office.

“The merger gives us the critical mass to assimilate more confidently in different countries,” chief executive officer Woon Shung Toon told StarBiz recently.

Cornerstone Asia’s Malaysian operations will house managed outsourcing activities for BI and product research and development.

Woon said the company planned to invest RM6mil to RM8mil to grow its managed services and research and development activities in the next three years.

He said Malaysian businesses striving to increase their competitive edge should look to BI as a strategic management decision-making tool.

“For forward-looking companies in Malaysia seeking to increase their competitive edge, we are well placed to provide them with this capability.”

Chief operation officer Ng Su Kai said many local firms had focused on enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementations over the past five years.

“BI typically comes after ERP and BI is increasingly becoming the top priority for a lot of CIOs in the Asia-Pacific,” he said, adding that the company plans to aggressively grow its business in Malaysia.

Cornerstone Asia has, over the past five years, built its BI and AA expertise in several key areas, including insurance, banking and healthcare.

In Malaysia, Woon expects traction to stem largely from the banking, insurance and telecommunications verticals.

“Healthcare is an area which we have done well in the region. Although we have not made an attempt to address the market here, yet it’s something we would like to do as part of our investment in Malaysia,” he said.

Cornerstone Asia, which is projecting revenue growth of over 20% for the next five years, expects revenue to grow to S$40mil this year from S$33mil in 2007.

Malaysia now contributes 5%-6% to group turnover but the company hopes to grow it to 15%-20% in about three years.

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