Despite the current global economic slow down, Panasonic Malaysia still managed to hit its number and show a positive growth for selected key products in 2013, according to Seelan Kandasamy, GM of Panasonic Malaysia, by broadening their vertical spectrum, focusing on the banking and finance sector, property development
Despite the current global economic slow down,
Panasonic Malaysia still managed to hit its number and show a positive growth for selected key products in 2013, according to Seelan Kandasamy, GM of Panasonic Malaysia, by broadening their vertical spectrum, focusing on the banking and finance sector, property development, education, and Japanese organizations.
To further strengthen its territory in the mid- to high end market sectors, now, the company is focusing on providing IP solutions. “Being Panasonic, we are there for many different product categories,” Kandasamy said. “We are there for PBX, video surveillance, multi-function printers, you name it. Now, when we step into the IP platform, what we are looking at is how we can integrate them together and give value added benefits to the customer.”
One way Panasonic is looking to give more value to customers is through cloud-based services. “In the very near future we are thinking of launching hosted cloud-based services, particularly for retail, home users, and SME customers. We already did it in Japan,” Kandasamy said. Still, though, at this point launching cloud services in Malaysia is still just an idea. Even so, Kandasamy hopes that if they do launch cloud services they will be able to work with other service providers. “If Panasonic was to do cloud-based and host everything on our end we would be competing with them. Rather than competing, let’s merge. Let’s integrate and go to the market together.”
In the banking sector, where Panasonic Malaysia has a strong presence in country, Kandasamy highlighted how many of the local banks already deploy Panasonic PBX systems. Additionally, around three years ago the company upgraded the analog-based PBX systems with IP systems. However, reservations regarding IP use still exist — fear of its security and limited bandwidth. Education, though, is what Kandasamy believes is the push that the industry needs for acceptance. “What we are doing is we are educating them, look, video surveillance is no more a static data where you trace what happened, it’s a preventive measure.” Yet, cost is also a hindrance to IP adoption. To this, Kandasamy pointed out “that for preventive measures you need to invest a little bit more.”