Business

Wednesday April 1, 2009

Manulife boosting IT and development services

BY DALJIT DHESI


KUALA LUMPUR: Manulife Technology & Services Sdn Bhd (MTS), a wholly-owned unit of the world’s fourth-largest life insurer Manulife Financial Corp, will invest US$5.5mil this year in its information technology (IT) and development services.

It subsequently plans to boost investment by 50% annually for the next three years.

Manulife Financial senior vice-president and general manager for global resourcing Guy R. Mills said apart from IT development services, MTS also intended to grow its staff strength by about 100 a year.

“MTS currently has 70 IT personnel with a wide range of skills and experience in software development, quality assurance services and project management.

“We plan to increase this figure to more than 150 by year-end,” he told StarBiz after the formal announcement of MTS as a global IT shared service centre for Manulife Financial.

The centre will be located at Manulife Holdings Bhd’s corporate office in Kuala Lumpur.

Manulife Financial owns 46% stake in Manulife Holdings.

Manulife Financial executive vice-president and global chief information officer Joseph Cooper said the IT shared service centre would provide software development and quality assurance services to the group’s operations in Asia and North America.

Cooper said the centre would complement Manulife’s existing IT capabilities and resources which include enhancing existing systems to providing services to support areas such as finance and operations.

Cooper added that since its inception in 2005, MTS had shown its ability to deliver high quality IT work for Manulife Malaysia as well as some of the group’s Asian operations.

Establishing it as an IT shared service was also part of Manulife Financial’s strategy to develop significant in-house shared operations, he noted.

Mills said the decision to create the centre in Malaysia was based on several reasons including the country’s education system that focused on computer science, IT and engineering as well as the existence talented and young professionals.


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