LISTENING to what the market needs is vital to being an entrepreneur, said SecureMetric Technology Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Edward Law Seeh Key.
“We have to continuously monitor market needs and offer services that will keep up with that need,” he said.
The 44-year-old co-founder of the digital security service provider added that his strategy of adding value, innovating and providing solutions to clients’ needs helped to grow the company from being just a trader to having its own technology.
The company has a different product portfolio and Law said this was to be more flexible with how it was being marketed to targeted clients.
For instance, as the solution to implementing software licence protection, it has direct sales teams which liaise directly with software companies or developers.
“As this product protects highly sensitive software intellectual properties, there is no middleman involved,” Law said.
On the other hand, in the authentication solutions for financial institutions, Law said they work with local system integrators who are well-connected with their own clients.
The silver winner of The Star Outsanding Business Awards 2015 (SOBA) Best Global Market category started out in 1998 by setting up a digital security business called Softkey e-Solutions Sdn Bhd to distribute third-party security products, such as digital fingerprint and smartcard readers with four co-founders.
“We realised such a business model was not sustainable as there were many other competitors who will jump on the bandwagon, and it is not easy to differentiate ourselves.
“The ICT security market is one that evolves very quickly, and if we are not careful, we will become irrelevant very fast,” Law said.
As the Internet and usage of digital technology grows, so would security incidences such as security, phishing and pharming attacks.
Realising this, Law said they went on to conduct research and development in the related security software development.
Beginning with a team of seven staff in 2007, the company outsourced its manufacturing of related IT security hardware such as dongles, token, smart cards and smartcard readers to a manufacturer in China.
These were then sent to its headquarters in Technology Park Malaysia, Bukit Jalil where the staff would do the firmware injection and device initialisation of the software into the related security hardware.
Their major foreign deal was when they secured the tender to provide a turnkey Government Certificate Authority System for the Philippines government in 2013.
The company had since been rapidly growing its portfolio of global clients from the United States, Hong Kong, Bangladesh, China, Middle East countries and South-East Asian countries, with more than 500 clients in the government sector, financial institutions, transportation and software companies.
Today, the company has 65 staff and six offices in five countries worldwide, including Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam.
Adding that the company believed in investing in its staff by sending them to overseas information technology and security conferences, Law said they also participated in various international non-profit organisations in the areas of IT security.
“We get to meet and exchange ideas with top level executives in the industry, and this expands our insights in the industry,” he concluded.
Source - http://www.thestar.com.my/metro/smebiz/news/2016/02/19/be-safe-and-secure-online-company-specialising-in-security-software-development-an-awardwinning-serv/