Schott AG, a German multinational manufacturer of high-tech materials for specialty glass, has set up Schott Asia IT Services Sdn Bhd (SAITS) in Kuala Lumpur as its international IT competence center. SAITS will play a key role at Schott IT to integrate the company’s IT services, which have been distributed across various vendors, under one roof.
SAITS will support Schott AG’s virtualization and cloud platform management, network, and contemporary workplace services across 45 production plants and seven business divisions throughout the world. Mirko Goetze, vice president and head of Schott’s regional information solutions stated that the strategic geographical location in the heart of Asia, strong IP and privacy law, good staff loyalty, English skills, familiarity with western culture, multi-cultural workforce, stable and inexpensive infrastructure, and robust innovation sector, were all the core factors in choosing Malaysia for SAITS.
Goetze added that Malaysia also offers various digital investment advantages such as the MSC Status which provides tax incentives for foreign companies, among others. The Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC), a government tech transformation agency, has also provided significant support and accelerated the implementation of SAITS in Malaysia despite some initial disruptions due to the global pandemic.
In particular, Schott’s IT talent drive has attracted over 2,000 applicants and over 200 interviews, signifying Malaysia’s capabilities in digitally skilled talents. There are 50 T-Systems systems, 30 IBM systems, and 130 “others” systems out of the total number. SAITS now employs 30 highly trained IT professionals, with plans to expand to 150 in the next two to five years.
Schott AG is based in Mainz, Germany, and has operations in 34 countries. It provides highly skilled services and leading products to a wide range of customers, including healthcare and consumer electronics, as well as optics, automotive, and aerospace. It also operates a plant in the Malaysian state of Penang that specializes in the production of optical components and wafers. Schott has 16,500 employees worldwide as of the fiscal year 2020, with revenues of MYR 11.1 billion (USD 2.63 billion).
According to the Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA), Germany is Malaysia’s largest foreign investor from the European Union. Malaysia had implemented 461 industrial projects with German participation, totaling MYR 33.31 billion (USD 9.36 billion) in investments and producing 47,277 employments as of June 2020. DHL, T-Systems, and BMW are among the 27 active MSC Companies from Germany that provide IT and global business services (GBS).
(Sources: MDEC; Digital News Asia)
