The semiconductor market in China is by far the largest, accounting for about 35% of the global market share, surpassing the US, Europe, Japan and even Taiwan, which is home to the largest manufacturer of semiconductor chips. Yet, the development of China’s semiconductor technology lags behind, and it exposes the urgent need of new talent to meet the growing market demand while supplies are squeezed due to the pandemic.

In fact, according to a report published this year by the China Institute for Educational Finance Research at Peking University, the shortfall of talent in the country’s semiconductor industry doubled in 2019 to about 300,000 from 150,000 in 2015.  In fact, it is predicted that China will still have a shortage of about 250,000 specialists by 2022, a White Paper on Talents in China’s Integrated Circuit Industry 2019-2020 claimed.

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While the problem is not unique to China, a recent report by South China Morning Post (SCMP) said it could be increasingly detrimental to the country’s quest to gain self-sufficiency in its fledgling semiconductor industry to fend off supply chain risks.

But based on a recent report by investment bank China International Capital Corporation (CICC), it is not a number issue, but it is regarding quality. In short, there is a lack of industry leaders, especially in chip manufacturing.

The current semiconductor job landscape in China

China had 510,000 people employed in the semiconductor industry, as of the end of 2019, up by 11% year-on-year (YoY), with 350,000 of those working directly in either design or manufacturing, according to SCMP. By comparison, the US had about 280,000 professionals in semiconductor design and manufacturing.

It is not that the government is not doing something about it. To recall, in August last year, China issued its Number 8 policy, three months after the Trump administration barred Huawei from sourcing chips from the global foundries. The policy is a detailed guideline to shore up its semiconductor industry with tax incentives, supportive financing and better training schemes emphasizing a blend of academia and industry.

Fortunately, Tsinghua University in China, a locally-claimed prestige university,  established a specialised chip college in April this year. The semiconductor school is based on Tsinghua’s original departments of microelectronics, nanoelectronics and electrical engineering, according to state news. The goal is to train much-needed semiconductor engineers and ultimately to achieve the national goal of chip self-efficiency amid a global shortage which is exacerbated by the tech war between Washington and Beijing.

The post China is fighting a chronic talent shortage in the semiconductor industry appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

It’s been more than a year and the global semiconductor shortage has shown no signs of abating as supply chains have yet to keep up with the growing demand. Now, given how complex the supply chain is within the industry, Taiwan, the world’s major chip producer, is saying it cannot sort out the problem alone and needs Malaysia to do its part to help ease the stress on the chip shortage.

Having been at the front and center of efforts to resolve the shortage, Taiwan Economy Minister Wang Mei-hua told Reuters that it could not sort out the problem alone because the supply chain is so complex. “The bottleneck in fact is in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia, because for a while the factories were all shut down,” she said.

Currently, Malaysia is one of the top ten countries in the semiconductor industry, accounting for about seven percent of the global semiconductor trade and about 13% of the global capacity in terms of back-end assembly test and packaging.

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Wang reckons the focus now should be on Malaysia resuming production as soon as possible. “I know that Malaysia started to restore production capacity in early September, and now the production capacity has returned to about 80%, so if their capacity can slowly come back, this problem can be slowly dealt with.”

However, according to Malaysia Semiconductor Industry Association President Wong Siew Hai, major Malaysian semiconductor manufacturers are already running at full capacity to supply the auto industry, Reuters reported

“For the automotive chips, they are doing their best to ship as much as possible, but the current capacity cannot meet demand because it’s too huge, the build-up is a lot. Everything is at 100% to satisfy the demand for automotive parts. Where they can increase productivity, they’re already doing so,” he said.

But when it comes to increasing capacity, Wong said it will take time, with most available only next year. For context, Malaysia houses suppliers and factories serving semiconductor makers such as Europe’s STMicroelectronics and Infineon, as well as major car makers including Toyota Motor Corp and Ford Motor Co.

A local media even reported, quoting an economist from Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) Geoffrey Williams, who believes the remaining restrictions in Malaysia  affecting the semiconductor industry should be lifted in order to address the global semiconductor shortage. “Malaysia must be careful to maintain its good position in the semiconductor industry if it does not want to lose out to other countries,” he said.

Malaysia has also been facing restrained manufacturing, and supply of aluminum capacitors, making the global shortage only worse. Aluminum capacitors are used in 5G, work-from-home electronics, electric vehicles (EV), and renewable energy tech, which are all increasing in demand with time. Unfortunately, just as demand picks, top suppliers of the aluminum capacitor have been undergoing facility shutdown and capacity reduction in the past few months.

The post For Taiwan, Malaysia could ease the global semiconductor shortage appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

As industries scrambled to remain productive amidst movement restrictions, many have turned to cloud and online services to connect their teams remotely so business goes on as usual.

Digital skills gap at crisis levels globally

The demand for workers who are IT and digitally skilled isn’t something new and has been preached by analysts, researchers, and experts for years as nations move towards growing their digital economies. 

The sudden pace with which challenges appeared for tech-reliant businesses has exacerbated the issue of a dearth of ICT and digitally-savvy talent, especially in cybersecurity, the latter of which is highly important to protecting remote workforces.

According to McKinsey, over 90% of executives across the world are facing digital skills gaps in their workforces. This is a particular blight of the APAC region, where a majority of workforces are employed by SMEs. These SMEs have tended to put off digitalization efforts in past years, perhaps due to a misconception that such a shift would entail high costs.

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According to Randstad Malaysia, the need for workers with digital skills is rising, even in “traditional” functions such as accounting & finance, human resources, sales & marketing, and risk & compliance. Furthermore, rising future tech such as quantum computing will need talent too.

This is in part due to the growth of industries such as e-commerce, fintech, logistics & supply chain, manufacturing, R&D, MedTech, and biotech. The global recruitment agency estimates that these industries in particular will continue to see solid growth in 2021.

Governments addressing the digital skills gap

Singapore, seen as a tech darling and emerging tech powerhouse of the SEA region, is facing a severe tech talent shortage across all verticals. Aside from promoting upskilling of citizens through the SkillsFuture initiative, one other way the government has addressed this longstanding issue is to make the island nation more attractive to skilled foreign knowledge workers.

However, such a move has not sat well with critics, who allege that FTAs such as CECA (Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement) would allow foreigners “unfettered access” to jobs in the country of almost six million. 

Unsurprisingly, the influx of foreigners has been unpopular with a seemingly monolithic citizenry at risk of normalized xenophobia who believe these foreigners are there to “steal their jobs”. 

Irate citizens aside, the city-state has to address the digital skills shortage as quickly as possible. As reported by Reuters, “A boom in technology jobs across all sectors in Singapore and a shortage of tech workers means the country will have to rely on foreigners to fill the gap,” said Ravi Menon, the managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore said in May.

Over in Australia, one in six businesses faces skill deficiency problems. Some 64,000 businesses lack skilled finance professionals; 55,000, marketing professionals, and 45,000 businesses lack IT professionals.

Chief executive of the Australian Institute of Public Accountants (IPA) Andrew Conway, has called on both state and federal governments to reform the education system in order to “increase the stock of knowledge-based workers available for employment”.

The IPA urged governments to consider implementing enterprise training and STEM subjects at all levels of the education system, together with appropriate levels of promotion and financial support. 

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Over in the fast-rising ASEAN digital economy Malaysia, the central government has approached the urgent digital skills gap by increasing the talent development of citizens through partnering with multiple tech giants. 

In July, the HRDF (Human Resource Development Fund) launched a one-stop portal called HCF (HRDF Placement Center) that matches employers from a wide range of industries and sectors to the right candidates.

According to the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia Malaysia (MCMC), the HPC aims to fill immediate vacancies and offer training and development opportunities. Additionally, it would connect workers with an expansive list of coaches and trainers for career counseling and advice.

Addressing the skills shortage: not just a governmental effort

The private sector, including foreign tech giants, will find that it is a prime opportunity to step up to the challenge of skills training and development for local workforces.

Recently, Malaysian telco Celcom Axiata inked a “Digital Leadership MoU” with tech giant Huawei Technologies Malaysia. The Digital Leadership initiative will launch a set of talent development programs that aims to nurture aspiring ICT professionals from within Celcom’s existing workforce, equipping them with skills related to the latest technological developments.

These tech skills, according to a release by Celcom, include Big Data, Cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), 5G technology, and other “pervasive technologies”.

Whilst Celcom’s initiative seems self-serving, independent efforts like these still go towards improving the technological and digital capabilities of workers, even if it is for a particular company.

Collaborations between local businesses and tech giants result in sharing best practices and knowledge transference from global leaders in tech without needing to wait for governmental action. This is especially valuable for nations where governments and associated bodies tend to work in silos separated by layers of red tape, and which are marred by a lack of operational efficiencies and improper communications.

Overall, governments can only do so much — filling up vast numbers of vacancies with foreign talent is but a short-term solution. Upskilling or training native citizens with digital skills should still be a priority for most nations, alongside stop-gap solutions such as bringing in foreign talent.

It is imperative for workforces to be able to “future-proof” themselves in terms of employment opportunities and be well-positioned to drive economies of the future for the long term. After all, foreign talents are not likely to remain in the workforce for long, as long as better opportunities exist elsewhere.

The post What will it take to bridge the digital skills gap in APAC? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Real-time web outage tracker Downdetector reported that hundreds of people lodged Zoom reports earlier in the day, and the site’s outage heat map indicating that major cities including London, Manchester, and Birmingham were among the worst affected by the issues, with 579 people lodging individual reports just shy of 9 am.

We are aware of a subset of customers experiencing errors while joining a live meeting. We are currently investigating and will provide updates as we have them.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

Follow updates at: https://t.co/b0YP6nLSp0

— Zoom (@Zoom) August 23, 2021

Concrete reasons for the outage are still hazy at this time, but of those who reported, 57% said they were having issues joining conferences, while a third of complaints (33%) reported that they were struggling to even start their conference calls. A further 10% was claiming server connection issues, with numerous users reporting individual issues such as audio drops or video freezes.

Downdetector also lists some of the past issues faced by Zoom, with issues being listed as ‘Resolved’ on June 24, June 29, and July 7 of this year. Zoom outage issues appear to be ramping up, though, with another incident earlier this month in Australia. On August 9, amidst ongoing heavy lockdowns in major cities Sydney and Melbourne, thousands of users reported being unable to connect to meetings and online lessons.

1,721 users reported being faced with messages including ‘error’ and ‘502 Bad Gateway’ when trying to log into video calls onto Zoom, but the Daily Mail says far more were affected as only a fraction reported the outage. Office workers and students had that day’s lessons and virtual meetings being mostly unable to connect in Australia, although the issue was eventually fixed on the same day and a Zoom spokesperson apologized “for any inconvenience” to its Australian users.

Most of the reported technical issues experienced in both the UK and Australia had to do with connecting with meetings – the bread-and-butter solution that put Zoom on the map in 2013, with 400,000 people signing up within the first month, and amassing 200 million meeting minutes recorded by the end of its first year of operations.

While healthy, Zoom was a smaller web conferencing platform in comparison with its gargantuan competition like Google Meet and Microsoft Teams, until the COVID-19 pandemic began taking firm root globally in Q1 2020. Zoom quickly reached the milestone of 300 million daily meeting participants by just April 2020, as end-users, students, and remotely distributed workers all turned to the video collaboration platform to stay connected.

Since then, the platform has gone on to register in excess of 3.3 trillion meeting minutes per year, indicative of massive growth since that first year of operations. The pandemic was undoubtedly the biggest contributor to the lofty success of Zoom and other video collaboration solutions in the past year, but are the recent outage events the result of overworked servers and communications infrastructure?

Another possibility is a cyberattack, but the performance problems and relatively quick recovery times appear to indicate internal concerns instead. Perhaps more strangely, the drops in reliable performance are coming at a time when fewer users are making use of the platform.

J.P. Morgan analyst Sterling Auty mentioned in a research note how Zoom’s daily average user count was down nearly a third to 44.3 million, down from 49.3 million in Q1 2021 and a high of 67.7 million daily average users in the quarter ending July 2020. The researcher also pointed out that enterprise collaboration platform Microsoft Teams also lost ground in Q2 of this year, with its monthly active users down from 17% the previous quarter to 15.4%.

Much like how ‘Zoom fatigue’ was an oft-repeated factor in the early days of mass adoption as users acclimatized themselves with conducting meetings wholly online (along with all the resultant connectivity issues and unintentional gaffes), could ‘videoconferencing fatigue’ be setting in for the millions of users who have had to rely on this software for so long?

Furthermore, as offices slowly reopen, and countries with a high rate of vaccination begin encouraging economic activities instead of spending time online in virtual meetings, and students take time off the software to enjoy their summer holidays – is the need for Zoom and its fellow collaboration platforms not as pressing as it was a year ago, when there was no other alternative?

J.P. Morgan’s Auty noted in his paper that while Zoom still retains a healthy slice of the videoconferencing app market, at 38.4% total downloads this year, that is still down nearly a whole quarter (24.9%) from total Zoom downloads in 2020.

Has video collaboration software reached the pinnacle of its growth curve already, as the world slowly transitions to a post-pandemic ‘new normal’ – one with perhaps greatly reduced need for virtual meetings? Or are these creeping Zoom outage issues a sign of bigger troubles brewing?

The post Did overuse cause Zoom to go down across the world? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Malaysian SMEs in retail and F&B that are still considering digitalizing their operations can now better understand and learn more through digital guidebooks. 

Launched by the Malaysia Digital Economy Malaysia (MDEC), the SME Digital Guidebook and Quick Guide for the Food & Beverages (F&B) and retail industry are part of MDEC’s 100 Go Digital initiative.

A quick how-to for Malaysian SMEs

These resources aim to help SMEs in the retail and F&B sector to reassess their digital opportunities and readiness via a step-by-step guide on how to enhance their current digital capabilities and begin their digital transformation journey.

“Digital technologies are massively transforming every sector. While this poses a tremendous number of challenges for SMEs, particularly traditional businesses, it also creates a wave of new opportunities.

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“Malaysia may have scored high on digital readiness rankings, but digital adoption by SMEs and traditional businesses are often hindered by – among others – lack of awareness, readiness, know-how, and appreciation of the benefits of digitalization; as well as the oft-misperceived high cost of implementing new technologies”, shared MDEC CEO Surina Shukri, in a statement last week.

At the time of writing, Shukri, who has led MDEC since 2019, will leave the organization by 31 August 2021.

In Malaysia, an overwhelming 98.5% of the 920,624 business establishments in Malaysia are small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Despite being the backbone of the country’s business environment, digital adoption among SMEs lags behind that of larger enterprises, according to the World Bank Malaysia. 

Surina Shukri, CEO of MDEC (IMG/MDEC)

According to MDEC, these essential guidebooks are structured, with an easy-to-follow method. This will enable and empower businesses with the necessary skills and knowledge, ensuring resiliency and agility, especially during a time where a pandemic is raging.

The SME Digital Guidebooks serve as the first point of reference for SMEs interested to embark on digital adoption. It also lists down the latest trends that will impact SMEs, talk about the importance of digitalization, and also direct SMEs to available initiatives within Malaysia that they could leverage on.

Guides come in two forms

Currently, the SME Digital Guidebooks are focused on the retail and F&B industry and comes in two reference guides for each sector. 

The SME Digital Quick Guide is an easy-to-read document for quick reference, providing a high-level view for businesses.

The SME Digital Guidebook, on the other hand, is a full document that will take a more structured approach in mapping digital needs, technologies, business goals, and best practices to guide SMEs in elevating their digital capabilities. The Guidebook was co-developed with International Data Corporation (IDC), which provided analysis of the market and technology insights.

“Being a ‘digital first’ entity is no longer a choice but has risen to be a focal point for many SMEs to operate in current market conditions, and to thrive beyond 2021. The pandemic has permanently changed the manner consumers and businesses operate – and the profound impact of this change has resonated across all sectors of the economy; with retail and F&B segments being severely disrupted. 

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“To accelerate in a Digital Economy, it is crucial for SMEs to leverage upon available platforms and to transition its traditional base to one that is digitally-led”, said Sudev Bangah, Managing Director, IDC ASEAN.

The SME Digital Guidebook was launched during the Malaysia Tech Month 2021 (MTM’21), a virtual and month-long curation of digital and technology events geared not only towards showcasing Malaysia as a hub of digital investments but to also enlighten businesses with topics, solutions, and tools that can aid them in their digital transformation.

The SME Digital Guidebook and Quick Guide can be accessed and downloaded at https://mdec.my/100-godigital

The post MDEC launches digitalization guidebooks for Malaysian SMEs appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Since last year, automakers and electronics producers have been facing a shortage in semiconductor chips—the components vital to controlling onboard computing functions. The apparent chip drought had stirred panic among manufacturers, leading to increasing orders to secure future supplies. Chipmakers on the other hand were responding by expanding their capacities.

Now, as players innovate, shortage may no longer be an issue. Rather, the imbalance between demand and supply risks swinging the other way, as analysts warn a chip drought could become a chip glut. In other words, chip manufacturers might have invested too heavily in increasing their capacity, which could lead to an overcapacity over time. 

This is especially so since some automakers are considering switching production strategies, which would reduce reliance on massive orders of chips and other outsourced components. The latter would bring a shift in wait times for deliveries, as well as a potential need to rethink various elements on the supply chain.

According to a report by Bloomberg, the current wait to actually get a chip after you order it across the industry is 14.1 weeks, up from about 13 weeks in January. Anything above 14 is the “danger zone.” To top it off, the industry is notoriously cyclical and the current upswing has been dramatic, according to the report, adding that revenue across the sector rose 1.6% in (typically slow) January versus the prior month. 

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“That’s the first time this has happened in more than two decades and it’s 11 percentage points above the typical seasonal sales pattern, according to UBS. Double ordering is probably contributing to this,” it added.

South Korea’s Samsung with Taiwan’s TSMC control over 70%  of the semiconductor manufacturing market, with the latter being the biggest player in the industry at the moment. To recall, back in May, South Korea announced plans to invest US$450 billion to boost its chip production. The investment is channeled through several channels, including tax breaks, for companies that operate in the country. 

The current administration of the US is also considering ways to bring manufacturing back on American soil to reduce the reliance on various chipmakers and ensure a better supply for domestic industry. The Biden administration plans to allocate US$52 billion in incentives for the domestic semiconductor industry via a bill Congress is currently debating. At the same time, China is also investing heavily in new factories that will allow it to up its chip production, and all the above could lead to market saturation.

The EU too has committed US$160 billion of Covid recovery funds to develop regional tech capabilities as it aims to boost the bloc’s share of semiconductor manufacturing to 20% of the global total by 2030. In June, analysts at consultancy Bain & Company said building capacity would “hurt the economics” of suppliers since each will likely run production lines below capacity once demand abates.

Industry analyst Daniel Nenni told Fortune there would be a glut unless “there is some big boom in semiconductor demand” beyond the current panic buying. Once the panic subsides, the world could find itself with too many chips. But analysts warn that China—the country most desperate to secure a domestic chip supply—could suffer a glut more easily than its peers.

The post The semiconductor chips conundrum – from chip draught to chip glut appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

This is especially prominent in emerging economies like Southeast Asia (SEA), where impeded access to basic necessities is further compounded by financial and physical restrictions. This signals a dire need for countries to inclusively and rapidly reduce and eliminate gender and socioeconomic inequalities and inequities via strategies that include providing safety nets, social protections, increased financial inclusion, and job opportunities.

On technological innovation and digitalization

Research by Google, Temasek Holdings, and Bain & Co forecasts that Southeast Asia’s internet economy could swell to US$300 billion by 2025, three times its current annual size. Additionally, SEA is a hotbed for e-commerce activity, generating US$26 billion in transaction volumes in 2019 alone. 

This puts the region in a prime position to see massive transformative digital growth, and overtake other economies.

Whilst the bulk of this pandemic-catalyzed growth may come from demand for e-commerce, other technologically dependent areas are also rising, such as artificial intelligence (AI), fintech, and industry 4.0.

In fact, fintech, encompassing e-payments, digital banking, and the like are hot new areas that have seen an increasing rise in interest across various SEA nations such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia. 

Note that this is of particular importance because SEA comprises over one billion of the world’s underbanked and unbanked populations. 

This fact alone demonstrates that people here are hungry for financial inclusion, within a once-unattainable banking landscape.

Economic development: bridging the labor gap with equal access

In order for growth to happen, countries often focus on improving the labor productivity of their workforce, such as through job retention, job creation, and future-proofing the talent pool.

With the devastating impacts of the pandemic, these, together with private and public sector support such as subsidies and upskilling for workers, will prove to be even more crucial in the coming years. 

Businesses in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region comprise a whopping 97% of SMEs, employing over half of the combined regional workforce. Additionally, more than a third of the world’s unicorns (startups with a valuation of over US$ 1 billion) are from Asia.

Startups are a prominent stakeholder of the digital economy at large, as their nature lies in the way they innovate and disrupt, often through digital means. They also often require highly skilled and digitally savvy teams. 

Attaining post-pandemic recovery and economic growth is heavily dependent on having skilled workforces with the requisite talent and knowledge to capitalize on this digitalization opportunity. 

As aptly put by Director-General of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Guy Ryder,

“To recover better and quicker, governments will need to increase public and private investments in employment-intensive sectors in order to create jobs, and increase labor productivity, consumer confidence, and economic growth.”

Corporations and large players across various industries should also be cognizant of the massive profit gap that has existed prior to the pandemic.

Data by McKinsey & Company in their report “What’s next for consumers, workers, and companies in the post-COVID-19 recovery?” has shown that exacerbation of this profit gap will have dire consequences:

“If this concentration (of the profit gap) persists, there could be a repeat of the “great divide” observed after the global financial crisis when, at best, only a minority of companies, households, and regions enjoy productivity and income growth.

“More businesses will need to share in those gains for the changes prompted by COVID-19 to have a significant impact on productivity growth.”

So whilst Big Tech and corporations seek to further line their coffers, it would be prudent to work together and bridge the skills, technological, and opportunity access gaps with smaller players. 

By boosting their survivability and reducing the profit gap there will be long-term benefits for not just economies in the region, but also for larger corporations to continue their operations here.

Economic development requires skills, technology, and applications

Whilst we’ve largely spoken about SEA, other Asian countries are still struggling to catch up, especially those with massive socioeconomic and gender disparities. Bangladesh is an example, where women often face severe impairments in receiving equitable rights and opportunities as compared to men. 

Thankfully, there are players in the tech sectors that are putting in efforts to slowly bridge the digital and sociocultural divide. 

One example is Huawei’s Digital Training Bus initiative, which brings digital skills and education to women in rural Bangladesh through workstation-equipped buses.

With better social mobility, digital upskilling, and wealth creation opportunities, marginalized and vulnerable communities will stand a fighting chance to thrive and further contribute to economic growth down the road. 

Together with inclusive, sensible, supportive, and progressive policies by the public sector, and financial, technical, and infrastructural support from the private sector, this duality of forces will be able to push entrepreneurs and communities to not just survive but thrive. 

Ultimately, in this hyper-digitalized, post-pandemic world, flourishing digital economies will prove critical to a nation’s — and region’s — economic recovery, and eventual long-term prosperity.

The post Inclusivity, equal access to technology most crucial to economic development appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

The lowdown on Blockchain

There are multitudes of practical applications for blockchain technology due to its security and transparency – cryptocurrency is just one of them.

A blockchain is a highly secure, decentralized database system that stores records of data in a cryptographic format. Unlike normal databases, blockchain data created by users (transactions) are not stored in a central location (like a data server). Instead, they are stored on the machines or systems of the people who create the data, across a network. As creators store that data themselves, they ‘own’ their data, thus the system is considered ‘decentralized’. 

Normal data stored on data servers risk being accessed and/or manipulated by the data server owner, or may even be lost due to accidents; also, it may be difficult to have a record of these events. However, with blockchain, every transaction created and recorded is permanent and secured with a cryptographic ‘lock’, and the transaction is broadcasted to everyone who owns copies of the blockchain. It is immensely difficult to hack into it to change transaction details, hence why blockchain is transparent and trustworthy. 

As blockchain cannot be tampered with, is fully owned by the data creator, and stored across many machines, it won’t face the same security risks that normal data does. 

Media and entertainment challenges for creators

Currently, the global media and entertainment industry faces several challenges that blockchain’s secure and transparent nature can help to solve. 

These include:

• Intellectual property infringements (aka data/content piracy);
• A lower share of revenue due to intermediaries;
• Lack of clarity and transparency with royalty agreements;
• Slow and unsecured transactions, especially financial, and
• Inefficiencies of existing content micropayment systems

1. Content creators including musicians, artists, and game developers may often find their intellectual property (IP) rights violated by individuals or groups that distribute their content without paying for it (aka online pirates). The popularity of peer-to-peer (P2P) programs also enables and facilitates online piracy, making it difficult for creators to track who, how and when their content is unethically/illegally accessed and distributed. 

2. Furthermore, creators often find themselves forced to go through intermediaries (aka middlemen) in order to reach a wider market or to receive IP rights protection, which is sold to creators at a premium, which then increases costs to the end-user. Furthermore, digital management rights (DRM) software is not robust enough to withstand hacking.

3. As streaming sites gain popularity, especially during pandemic times, their market share of users is large and enticing to creators. Royalties are the main form of revenue for these creators, but access to fair compensation may be muddied by opaque or unclear royalty agreements and a lack of accurate content consumption tracking (such as the number of songs or shows played). Furthermore, the payment ecosystems in the media and entertainment industry are controlled by monopolistic intermediaries, who may delay compensation due to complex or overly manual processes. Sometimes, creators may also suffer from unsecured transactions.

4. Lastly, online news or media platforms, especially smaller, independent ones, often have trouble with access to optimized, efficient, and affordable micropayment systems. As such, they miss out on the market of consumers who do not wish to commit to a longer subscription, and instead, only make one-off purchases on articles or videos that interest them. 

How blockchain can help

1. The nature of blockchain technology allows creators to accurately and securely track the movement of their blockchain-hosted content by verified, paying consumers, and analyze distribution patterns due to its transparency. Unlike DRM software, blockchain is secure, so it would be nigh impossible to ‘hack’ the data to unethically distribute it, thereby eliminating content piracy at its source.

2. Blockchain-hosted content allows creators to bypass intermediaries, thus reducing content production costs, and pass the savings on to consumers. This thus increases the attractiveness of paying for content. In fact, P2P programs can actually help to facilitate sales and distribution directly to the end-user, thus increasing revenue share to the creator, whilst their IP rights remain protected. 

3. ‘Smart contracts’ built on a blockchain and attached to content would facilitate the accuracy, speed, and trust of the royalty system. Clear contract terms can be defined and automatically executed amongst involved parties as well. Content will also be easily and accurately tracked each time it is used, thus eliminating disputes on usage, and fairly divide revenue amongst creators and stakeholders.

4. The implementation of a blockchain-based pay-per-use micropayment system would be more efficient and more cost-effective to implement than existing systems. Content such as articles, graphic art, or videos may be sold on a per-use basis in an automated fashion, thus saving administrative and software costs for the creator.

Overall, blockchain technology allows content creators and media companies access to more just and equitable revenue arrangements by shifting the market power to them instead of intermediaries.

In addition, it can also help to stem the spread of fake news and allow consumers to take back control of their data while innovating the advertising and marketing industry.

The SEA impact

According to data released by Research and Markets, the blockchain in the media, advertising, and entertainment industry was valued at USD 166.6 million in 2020. It is predicted to grow to US$ 4.3B by 2026 with a massive 71.4% CAGR (2021 – 2026).

Globally, the blockchain market is estimated to reach US$ 23B by 2023, with a CAGR of 81%. Aside from cryptocurrency, blockchain has multiple applications across a variety of industries, thus making it an attractive choice for companies to adopt its use. As with other digital market growth forecasts, the APAC region is projected to grow the fastest.

Aside from other countries, authorities in Southeast Asia (SEA) have been rather receptive to exploring, improving, and implementing blockchain regulatory frameworks. A well-regulated blockchain ecosystem will make it easier and attractive for companies to set their systems up in the region. 

The post Can blockchain help solve the woes of the media and entertainment industry? appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

If one were to think about contact centers two years ago, it’d typically be of a huge building where agents sit next to each other attending to customers, while being glued to a headset and a desktop. Then came the pandemic in 2020 that has led us to anticipate the future of the contact center industry, and if anything, it’s going to be remote. 

However, with the world getting accustomed to the new normal, the contact center industry has seen interesting trends while accommodating to new challenges and newer solutions. This trend is likely to continue as organizations grow more comfortable with work-from-home environments and realize the benefits of moving to all-remote contact centers, including reduced absenteeism and improved service levels.

In fact, contact centers are no strangers to remote work. According to a study by Nemertes Research, 59% of contact centers around the world let at least some of their staff work from a home office pre-Covid-19. That figure now rose to 74.1% as coronavirus lockdowns forced companies to close offices and transition into virtual contact centers. Once authorities lift these restrictions, 70.7% of businesses are likely to continue allowing agents to work from home in some capacity.

Confronting data security threats in a contact center

Undeniably, data theft is a real threat to the finance, product development, and human resource departments of large organizations. One study by IBM suggests that the average cost of a data breach is US$3.92 million, and that number is on the rise.

Also, given how a contact center contains a wealth of sensitive information including names, phone numbers, and personal identity details reside on personal computers and corporate servers, data breaches can pose significant security risks to its customers too. 

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While the vast majority of call center employees will never steal this data, it only takes one bad apple to trigger an international scandal. To name one of many examples, in 2015, a Citibank call center employee in the Philippines sold the data of 30 clients to a crime syndicate in Australia, allowing the syndicate to acquire fraudulent credit cards and bank loans, and costing Citibank clients over a million dollars.

Unfortunately, the at-home agent model comes with such potential security headaches. Call center managers can minimize security problems by combining a strong and defensive security posture, common-sense security policies, and effective supervision. The cost savings and morale bonus gained by hiring remote agents shouldn’t be undone by a costly data breach.

Maintaining the data security of a remote contact center

From a technology perspective, it’s all about locking down endpoints. According to a report by Smart Customer Service, tactics include using a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), which allows you to host desktop environments on a centralized server and securely deploy the virtual desktops to employees.

If this is not an option, virtual private networks (VPNs) can provide data security by encrypting data being sent over a network, making it unreadable.

Employers should also ensure employees store all data in the cloud rather than locally. It is also best to require employees to use hard-wired connections instead of Wi-Fi, which creates the risk of roamers looking to hijack a connection.

Hard-wired internet access also ties employees to their home office space, which ensures they aren’t going to a coffee shop to handle sensitive customer information in a public place and/or working off an unsecured connection.

Another step is by restricting network access to hours of operation only, which mitigates the risk of bad actors accessing networks during off-hours.

Finally, the classic two-factor authentication ensures the person logging into a computer or network is the correct user.

The post Here’s why data security matters if contact centers go remote appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.

Since World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab released his seminal piece “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” in 2016, industries and economies around the world have sat up to acknowledge, recognize and embrace the phenomenon. 

After all, the world has progressed to what it is today – astounding technological advancements, fired by the disruptive potential that is uncovered in industrial revolutions. 

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The speed with which technology is evolving has heavily impacted the way individuals and organizations work, live, and play. The pervasiveness and permanence of its digital footprints are affecting us all now and the same for practically all sectors, developing roadmaps as part of the fourth industrial revolution (AKA Industry 4.0).

Dangling technological carrots in the form of automation, artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, internet-of-things (IoT), and more, the fourth industrial revolution beckons with the tantalizing prospects of improved efficiencies, workforce optimization, and of course, greater profits. And underlying all of that is the recognition that 5G is an important disruptive technology that will drive digital innovation in industries.

5G and the fourth industrial revolution: What’s the link?

IN 2019, Eckard Eberle, CEO of process automation at Siemens, said:

“Industrial 5G is the gateway to an all-encompassing, wireless network for production, maintenance, and logistics. High data rates, ultra-reliable transmission, and extremely low latencies will allow significant increases in efficiency and flexibility in industrial added value.” 

Those efficiencies are exactly what 5G promises, not just to industries, but also to individual consumers, and virtually every economic sector one could possibly envision. 

In 2019, the Capgemini Research Institute surveyed global industries on their perception of 5G in industries. They found that 75% of global industrial organizations saw 5G as a key enabler of digital transformation and that 65% planned to implement 5G by 2021. 

Today, their follow-up research and survey found that globally, 5G and complementary edge computing services are seeping into industrial operations. Whilst most of these efforts are still at the ideation and planning stages, 30% of global industrial organizations are already at or beyond the pilot stage – demonstrating that the high interest shown in 2019 has translated into on-the-ground efforts today. 

Industrial early adopters optimistic about 5G

A paradigm shift is happening now, as 40% of industrial organizations surveyed are expecting to roll out 5G at scale at a single site by 2023. Globally, 87% of industrial organizations are at or beyond the planning and/or proof-of-concept stage of 5G adoption. 

Early adopters of 5G in industrial settings are singing praises about their transition. 60% have affirmed that 5G has helped their businesses realize higher operational efficiencies, and 43% have experienced increased flexibility.

When it comes to leveraging 5G, 51% say they will use it to offer new products, whereas 60% say they will offer new services enabled by 5G. In terms of preference for 5G providers, over a third prefer to deploy private 5G networks, mostly from the semiconductor and high-tech sectors, as well as the aerospace and defense sectors.

The survey also highlighted how cognizant industrial organizations are of the environmental impact of their 5G adoption. 53% say they will prioritize the reduction of their environmental impact, whereas 67% will factor in the sustainability credentials of 5G-related service providers before engaging their services.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution and 5G adoption in APAC

Whilst the United States has led in the adoption of 5G in industries (34%), the APAC region comes in at a close second, with 32% at or beyond the piloting stage. Of particular interest is how South Korea leads the world in 5G trials and implementations, with 43% of industrial organizations there already at that stage. Aside from the growth opportunities afforded by 5G adoption, Capgemini recognized the role that governments played in accelerating it. 

In APAC, the South Korean government launched an initiative called “5G+ Strategy” to create a 5G ecosystem and provide tax incentives worth $27 billion by 2022 to promote the development of 5G-based industries and services. 

Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and the National Research Foundation (NRF) have set aside S$40 million to build an open innovation ecosystem to support 5G trials on industry use cases. 

Meanwhile, Australia has launched the “Australian 5G Innovation Initiative” to provide grants to help businesses test 5G use cases in sectors such as mining, manufacturing, and construction.

Giving Industrial 5G an edge

Edge computing, while a fairly recent concept, has already been adopted by 72% of the world’s IT leaders in their businesses. 

This technological innovation has not gone unnoticed by the industrial sector, which sees edge computing as essential to realizing the full potential of 5G. In fact, 64% plan to adopt 5G-based edge computing services within three years.

Driving these decisions is the assurance that edge computing complements 5G deployments by increasing performance, reliability, data security, and privacy.

Key takeaways for everyone

These encouraging numbers in APAC and around the world clearly show that the time is now for all public and private players to harness the potential of 5G. 

Telcos, in particular, need to rapidly pilot and deploy essential 5G infrastructure and services to capture the industrial market. It requires a shift in mindset from being merely connectivity providers, to providers of vertical-specific solutions.

For industrial organizations, it is vital to determine an optimum network model, identify proper collaboration opportunities, and identify the most impactful use cases relevant to their needs before deploying 5G. More importantly, movements from early adopters should prompt industrial organizations that have yet to deploy 5G in their industry 4.0 efforts, to quickly do so.

The post 5G will set fire to the Fourth Industrial Revolution appeared first on Tech Wire Asia.