January 21, 2008
Petaling Jaya, 21 January 2008 - eBworx Berhad, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, sees 2008 as a landmark year for the group to achieve greater heights in terms of internal developments and contracts.
Chief executive officer Tan Suan Fong believes this aspiration will be a reality if the group continues to retain and recruit capable and qualified employees.
This is one of the main challenges in the local information technology (IT) industry today.
According to Tan, there is a severe shortage of IT graduates with the right qualifications and of the right quality in the industry.
“The limited pool of human resource is causing the cost of IT to go up and could make us uncompetitive when we go overseas. The local IT industry will suffer. It has become so bad that we have to source from outside the country,” he said.
In an effort to retain its employees, eBworx has relocated to new premises at Axis Business Park, which has a total floor space of over 18,600 sq ft, to provide a bigger and more conducive workplace.
“The progress of eBworx is tied to the happiness of its people. In order to provide our clients with excellent service, we need to ensure that our employees are satisfied first.
“By investing in a more conducive working environment, our employees will be able to perform better - translating into good client service,” Tan said.
The group has also invested substantially in training.
“For instance, all new staff have to undergo three months of training. We firmly believe that continuing training is more important than certification.
“To continue offering attractive remuneration, the company conducts a market salary survey every 12 to 18 months to ensure that its salary scheme is competitive with those in the market,” Tan said.
Hwang-DBS Vickers Research Sdn Bhd noted that eBworx's annualised earnings for the nine months ended Sept 30, 2007, was 21% below its financial year 2007 (FY2007) estimate due to loss of technical employees to competitors.
The group recorded a 55.7% jump in net profit to RM8.9mil year-on-year for the period while revenue grew 31% to RM32mil.
The research house expects the loss of technical workers to persist, thus resulting in higher labour costs.
“Nevertheless, we think the group can still win projects should it decide to raise prices to reflect rising costs (in the industry) because its prices are still at a significant discount to regional competitors,” Hwang-DBS said in a research note.
It has cut eBworx's FY2007 earnings by 20.9% and FY2008 by 27.4% but is still maintaining a buy call on the stock with a target price of 70 sen. The counter rose 4 sen to close at 33 sen on Friday.
Related Links: Adapted from www.thestar.com.my
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