New technologies present huge opportunities in customer experience industry - Gobind

PETALING JAYA, Nov 13 -- The impact of new and disruptive technologies presents a huge opportunity for Malaysia’s customer experience (CX) workforce in capitalising and upskilling into higher-value roles in the industry, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Gobind Singh Deo.

He said the global CX industry is undergoing a major revolution as a result of automation, artificial intelligence, search engine optimisation, and machine learning.

“The pace of change is accelerating, fueled by technology and changes in customer expectations.

“These new disruptive technologies are forcing us to rethink and reevaluate the way CX activities operate, for example how Netflix has revolutionised the way we watch television,” he said in his keynote address at the CX Summit 2019 here today.

He said Malaysia could also be positioned as the location of choice for companies looking to expand and establish new contact centres if the opportunities were optimised well.

According to the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), the contact centre industry in Malaysia comprises of 230 MSC Malaysia status companies employing 53,544 people and generates a total revenue of USD 2.5 billion per annum.

“The question is, how can all of you take advantage of the opportunities presented by the ‘new norm’ for everyone who works in the industry, from those who work in the contact centres through to organisations with contacts centres and to Malaysia?

“We can learn and bring the past, present and future together in a journey that will redefine the CX industry for Malaysia,” the minister said.

The two-day summit themed ‘Customer Experience - Engage, Elevate, Excel’ which kicked off today is organised by the Contact Centre of Malaysia (CCAM), with more than 500 industry players expected to engage in CX discussions and plannings.

Touching on the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP), Gobind said his ministry would provide robust, pervasive and affordable digital connectivity across the country.

He said the NCFP would certainly be a boost for the contact centre industry as high-speed internet would help the fast commissioning of new contact centres, seamless usage of application and cloud adoption. 

Apart from the technology boost, the minister said the government is also committed to creating better employment opportunities for all through the Malaysians@Work initiative which is meant to spur domestic talent growth.

“I hope the CX industry would participate in this initiative which would be a great benefit for everyone,” he added.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng when tabling the 2020 Budget in Parliament last month said the government would be launching the Malaysians@Work initiative, aimed at simultaneously creating better working employment opportunities for youth and women, in the process of reducing over-dependence on low-skilled foreign workers.

He said the initiative would create an additional 350,000 jobs for Malaysians in five years and be able to reduce foreign workers dependency by more than 130,000 jobs.

CCAM was inaugurated in September 1999 and since then, it has been at the forefront of developing the local customer relationship management and contact centre industry in Malaysia.

It is a strategic think-tank, an educational platform and a progressive establishment geared towards constantly improving the calibre of industry professionals.

-- BERNAMA