KUALA LUMPUR (June 30): Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) has inked two collaboration agreements with Cisco International Ltd to co-invest in projects for 5G innovation and the digital acceleration of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The partnership is part of Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) programme, which is a strategic partnership with governments worldwide to accelerate their national digitalisation agendas.
“The programme taps on the power of private and public partnerships across a variety of sectors, including national infrastructure, education, and smart businesses and communities, to bring digital solutions to national challenges,” Cisco said in a statement.
TM said the partnership with Cisco focuses on three key pillars: digital transformation in the public sector — specifically education, which will be launched at a later date — digital transformation for service providers that focuses on 5G innovation, and digital transformation for SMEs.
Under the agreements, Cisco and TM will build a 5G-as-a-service centre of excellence to springboard 5G adoption and develop proof of concepts for enterprises and vertical industries. "Supported by Cisco’s full stack of Private 5G Core technologies complete with services and support, the innovation platform will demonstrate 5G enterprise use cases realised on the reference architecture to allow businesses to visualise and implement 5G frameworks and solutions that address unique business challenges," the statement read.
To accelerate digital transformation for SMEs, Cisco and TM will also drive a joint digital solution seeding programme for selected SME customers.
"These solutions will range from the Internet of Things (IoT) to business analytics solutions for SMEs in the retail, education, and manufacturing sectors. Successful deployments will be showcased to broaden adoption within the SME ecosystem. Cisco will also launch a digital talent development initiative focused on introducing digital talent to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and training on how to navigate its cloud-based network, Cisco Meraki, as well as other mentoring opportunities and hackathon events," the statement read.
TM group CEO Imri Mokhtar said the collaboration builds on TM and Cisco’s 17-year partnership, and will be the first of many “Innovation Sandbox” collaborations TM will drive, in its efforts to realise the Digital Malaysia aspiration and the nation's 5G objectives.
“TM is honoured to be the first company to partner with Cisco in bringing the CDA programme to Malaysia, which has the potential to benefit enterprises, consumers and over 400,000 SMEs,” Imri said.
Dave West, president of Cisco Asia Pacific, Japan and Greater China, said technology plays a critical role in powering an inclusive future for all.
“Our CDA programme in Malaysia is focused on turning the country's digital economy blueprint into reality by leading the development of core 5G technologies and infrastructure, accelerating the digital transformation of SMEs, and nurturing a pipeline of next-generation IT talent that will continue to support its national ambitions,” he said.
Shares in TM were trading eight sen or 1.53% higher at RM5.31 at the time of writing, giving the group a market capitalisation of RM20.04 billion.
Source: https://www.theedgemarkets.com/article/tm-partners-cisco-accelerate-5g-innovation-digital-acceleration-smes-malaysia