(Sarawak Tribune; September 24th, 2004)

KUCHING – Raymond Cheng, the General Manager for Sunway Business Applications Sdn Bhd, said the use of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business solutions in the Asia Pacific region, particularly in Sarawak, was increasing.

“I think there is a lot of untapped potential in this region,” he revealed during a seminar entitled ‘How to Leverage ERP to Address Business Concerns,’ jointly organised by Sunway Business Applications, Sarawak Information Systems Sdn Bhd (SAINS) and co-sponsored by Hewlett Packard.

He added that together with SAINS, Sunway was working on a number of new accounts.

“There are a number of conglomerates we are talking to and we believe there is a lot of potential,” he said. Presently, there are three organisations using ERP solutions in Sarawak, namely Kho Kak Beng Engineering, Sebor and the Sarawak Housing Develop-ment Corpora-tion (SHDC).

Cheng saw ERP solutions, in the form of the EnterpriseOne software, as the most suitable for the Sarawak business environment as it involved a tripartite effort to bring business solutions to the local business community. The effort was made up of Sunway Business Application Sdn Bhd’s experience in implementing and distributing the software, SAINS’ experience as the local business partner and HP as a proven technology partner. Cheng explained that as a corporation grew and expanded, a lower-end ERP solution might not fit its needs and that there might be a need to move up to a world-class solution provided by PeopleSoft.

Elaborating on how SAINS contributed to the partnership, Cheng said that the company had its own team of dedicated team of consultants and implementers who were involved with Sunway in implementing for the three current customers in Kuching.Cheng revealed that there was a current resurgence of interest in ERP solutions among corporations. He attributed this to the increasing competition in the region’s economic sphere due to the opening up of China, the implementation of the Asian Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)

“And our Prime Minister’s call for everyone to be more information technology (IT) literate and to utilise more IT especially for the Small and Medium Industries (SME),” he stated.

Though about three years ago, many considered ERP solutions to be a sunset industry, Cheng pointed out that Sunway had never believed that and stood by its solutions. He said this was reflected in the fact that Sunway’s bottom line had improved this year compared to previous years.