KUALA LUMPUR: Pikom, the association representing the technology industry in Malaysia, lauded the Government for proclaiming that information technology (IT) remains as an essential service during the Full Movement Control Order (FMCO) that takes effect from June 1 to 14, 2021.
Its chairman Danny Lee said Pikom has been emphasising that IT is an important enabler in ensuring that businesses and sectors that are allowed to operate proceed with minimal disruptions.
"This calls for IT support and services to be made available during any lockdown," he said.
"During MCO1.0, there were delays in providing support for IT network infrastructure and applications that require regular maintenance. This resulted in downtime for some IT systems and affecting the work-from-home and online learning. Thankfully, this time around, IT is an essential sector," said Lee.
While IT was classified an essential sector, there remains ambiguity on the status of internal IT support in an end-user organisation.
"The internal IT departments also perform a key role in keeping systems up and running. While some of these functions are performed by external service providers, the internal IT departments will need to be onsite for some of the support operations," added Lee, highlighting that this also applies to businesses that are non-essential, but depend heavily on IT support.
The implementation of the full lockdown also left much to be desired. Since the announcement last Friday till further clarity was made over the weekend, businesses have been left guessing which sector will be allowed to operate. Further compounding the anxiety was the registration for approval to operate was with the respective ministries/agencies that the industry comes under.
"Recently, at the eleventh hour, a statement was issued for sectors that are allowed to operate, where they are to submit their request on MITI's CIMS portal, after much anticipation and wait from other ministries. As the previous approvals to operate expires on May 31, 2021, businesses were naturally alarmed," highlighted Lee.
"This has resulted in many of our members having to wait anxiously on which ministry or agency they have to apply from. We have been getting many calls and inquiries to get clarification. While using the MITI CIMS portal is certainly the right decision, this could be avoided if proper planning was made earlier," said Lee.
"It was disappointing that the late decision for application process was haphazard as this is not the first time we go through a lockdown. It was truly frustrating that we had lost a day of productivity, not only for the I.T. sector but most other industries as well. During the current challenging times, every single business day is critical. This is a failure of the process planning and not the limitations of an I.T. system, having noted that heavy traffic to the MITI CIMS has resulted in intermittent access since this morning," he added.
The tech association currently serves over 1,000 members commanding over 80 per cent of the total tech business in the country.