TM One’s Cloud ⍺ (Cloud Alpha) services have helped businesses weather through the COVID-19 pandemic

In partnership with Going Places by Malaysia Airlines

Digitalisation has been the buzzword this year, with companies across the world rushing to embrace tech upgrades in their operations. In fact, for all its devastating public health and economic consequences, Covid-19 has spurred necessary digital transformations that had previously been slow in many sectors.

This has been especially apparent in the business sector, particularly among small-medium enterprises (SMEs) that lacked the cashflow and operational resilience to survive the disruptions.

The urgency first became apparent back in March, when the Movement Control Order (MCO) first went into effect in Malaysia, causing many local businesses to stop or slow down their operations and their revenue gone into a flatline. In view of this, the Government has announced a stimulus package, and millions of citizens swamped the portal to register for financial assistance. The existing back-end system struggled to cope with the surge in traffic.

Helping SMEs #stayinbusiness

SMEs had suffered heavily due to the MCO, unable to open their places of work or welcome their customers. SMEs were identified by the Malaysian government for its second phase of financial assistance. But there was concern that similar technological issues could jeopardise the distribution of this aid.

To ensure that SMEs could apply for and receive the money they urgently needed to stay afloat, the government needed a stop-gap measure for the temporary surge to its website, one that could be quickly scaled to deliver more computing power. Furthermore, this solution would need to retain all sensitive applicant information at the on-premises data centre, to comply with regulatory requirements.

The scalable Cloud ⍺ service was a sustainable and cost-effective solution that enabled the government to provide immediate relief to the business sector

TM One’s game-changing solution

TM One was called to the rescue to deploy a suite of Cloud ⍺ (Cloud Alpha) services. Its Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution, residing in its Tier III Data Centre, addressed data residency concerns, as well as managed cybersecurity needs, while delivering robust, latency-free connectivity and reliability.

This customised solution was tested and delivered within just one week, with a dedicated team of experts working remotely and on standby 24/7 for technical assistance. Best of all, the scalable Cloud ⍺service was adaptable to fluctuating needs, making it a sustainable and cost-effective solution for the government and bringing immediate relief to the business sector.

But, the stimulus initiatives did not stop there. More initiatives were announced, and shortly after, the Government formed a special unit called Laksana to monitor the implementation of these various initiatives to ensure their timeliness and effectiveness. A Laksana Digital Dashboard, a coordinated effort by over 50 ministries to facilitate the successful, data-driven implementation of the Government’s economic stimulus packages, became a crucial tool for the Government.

TM One provided technological infrastructure and know-how to the Laksana Digital Dashboard. Through its involvement, it helped ensure that businesses and individuals were able to access the support they needed during this challenging period.

Supporting SMEs in the new normal

In addition to supporting the Government, TM One has also launched its own assistance programmes particularly for the SMEs. TM One offered half a year’s free subscription to its cloud-based office and collaboration tools to support SMEs’ remote working during the MCO. It also offered three-month free trials for its cloud-based disaster recovery services via Azure Stack, that allows customers to replicate and host virtual machines, providing failover in the event of a disaster.

Getting back to business

A wider-ranging, though no less impactful, innovation was rolled out a couple of months later, in May, when the Government announced the extension of the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO). With more businesses reopening and more Malaysians returning to work, ensuring a safe environment for employees as well as customers, without impeding operations, became urgently necessary.

Enter TM One’s Predictive Analytics Screening Solution, or ONE PASS. A purely local product developed by TM One’s own software designers, architects and coders, ONE PASS is a non-contact solution that screens the body temperature of individuals as they enter a business premise.

Head and shoulders above any of its counterparts in the market, the AI-supported ONE PASS can screen up to 100 individuals in a minute, with temperature accuracy within +/- .3 degree Celcius. ONE PASS smart health screening and monitoring solution is connected to a powerful analytics platform that enables mass individual analysis and swift in-building people tracking from a centralised dashboard. More than that, the Cloud ⍺ - powered solution can handle the self-declaration e-forms of up to 25,000 user profiles, and can integrate with contract-tracing systems.

 “ONE PASS is aimed at providing business continuity for organisations to declare their building as a ‘safe zone’ to work by implementing state-of-the-art health screening solutions,” TM One’s CEO Ahmad Taufek explains.

In short, this homegrown tech innovation has made it possible for hundreds of businesses to reopen and many more employees to return safely to work. Furthermore, it has given peace of mind to the customers who visit these venues and services, thereby mitigating prolonged impact to revenue.

Committed to transforming Malaysia’s SMEs

The Covid-19 pandemic has underscored the critical importance of digital transformation in Malaysia’s private sector. This is especially true for SMEs that may struggle to prioritise tech upgrades among their other budgetary considerations. The scalability and flexibility of the cloud reduce complexities and prohibitive costs around info-tech infrastructure, enabling SMEs to transform how they work without over-committing financially.

The events of 2020 have proven that a digital transformation for our country is not a choice, but a necessity. And TM One stands at the ready to foster a resilient ecosystem for business-owners and employees alike.

For more information about TM One’s Cloud ⍺ services, please visit the official website.