47 MSC Malaysia Status Companies Honoured

Global standards certifications an instrument for raising the internal capabilities of MSC Malaysia Status companies and to drive efficiency productivity and profitability.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – December 2, 2008 – Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC), the custodian of MSC Malaysia, today recognized the achievements of 47 MSC Malaysia Status companies that earned global standards certifications in 2008. At a gala dinner held at Hotel Imperial, Kuala Lumpur, representatives from the companies received letters of recognition from Deputy Minister of Science Technology and Innovation Y.B. Tuan Haji Fadillah bin Haji Yusof and MDeC Chief Executive Officer Dato' Badlisham Ghazali.

In 2008, through the MSC Malaysia Capability Development Programme (CDP), 15 MSC Malaysia Status companies were awarded a CMMI Maturity Rating; 19 companies earned certification in software testing; 4 companies achieved the ISO 27001 certification, an Information Security Management Standard; and 5 companies earned ISO 9001 certification, a Quality Management Standard. 4 more MSC Malaysia Status companies were honoured for sending their personnel to earn individual professional certification through the MSC Malaysia CDP Professional Development programme (CDP PD).

MDeC Chief Executive Officer Dato' Badlisham Ghazali

“CDP’s goal is to raise internal competencies among MSC Malaysia Status companies to ensure their continuing competitiveness in global ICT markets,“ said Badlisham. “In this year alone over 900 companies have benefited through the various seminars, workshops and programmes run by CDP and more than 300 ICT professionals have benefited from CDP PD. This is a particular noteworthy achievement because CDP PD only began 5 months ago,“ he added.

“CDP was launched in 2004 and so far over 120 companies have earned global standards certification. We are now seeing a trend where companies that have already achieved a certification are now pursuing certification in other areas. This is driven by their experience of the benefits of certification,” said Badlisham. “It is not a coincidence that in 2007 MSC Malaysia Status companies that had participated in CDP programmes achieved export growth of 79.18 percent, which is more that three times the 23.40 percent export growth of all MSC Malaysia Status companies for that year.“

“Through the efforts of CDP a June 2008 Software Engineering Institute report ranked Malaysia 1st in South East Asia and 14th in the world for the number of CMMI rated companies in our country. Since 2004, CDP has assisted more than 50 MSC Malaysia Status companies earn their CMMI Maturity Rating—5 of which achieved CMMI Maturity Level 5,” Badlisham continued.

“In 2008, CDP introduced 5 new programmes: CDP Marketing, CDP Leadership, CDP Innovation, CDP Strategy and CDP Professional Development,“ said MDeC Vice-President Capacity Development Division Ng Wan Peng.

“CDP also formed strategic partnerships with many other organizations like Cisco, CIMA, SEI, PMI, CIMA, MNCC, CIM, itSMF Malaysia, PIKOM, CyberSecurity Malaysia and many relevant government agencies,“ she added.

“In 2009, CDP will introduce new programmes especially in the area of management competencies and the number of individual professional certifications available through CDP PD will be extended via more partnerships,“ said Ng.

CDP not only assists companies achieve certifications. Participating organisations also enjoy additional benefits from monthly dialogues, seminars, clinics and workshops developed to gear them up to achieve certifications and later ensure business continuity. Upon completion, the successful programme participants are partly reimbursed from the total project cost.

CDP presently offers 11 organizational development programmes and CDP Professional Development, an initiative for individuals, designed to enhance skills of local ICT knowledge workers. These programmes are designed to address the 3Ps—Process Improvement, Product Quality and People Development—among MSC Malaysia Status companies through the focus areas of software process improvement, software testing, information security, IT service management, project management and improving the skills and knowledge of ICT professionals in Malaysia.

To date MSC Malaysia has created over 60,000 skilled jobs and over 1500 ICT companies have benefited through participation in various CDP initiatives.