Adrian Hia is responsible for the strategic direction and market development of VMware's cloud infrastructure and business mobility business in Vietnam and high-growth nascent markets in South and Southeast Asia, including, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. He has over 15 years of experience in the IT industry overseeing South and Southeast Asia. Adrian holds a Bachelor's Degree in Applied Science (Computer Engineering) from the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
BR Research caught up with Adrian, who was in Islamabad earlier this week on a business development tour, to discuss the future of cloud computing in Pakistan. Selected excerpts are produced below:
BRR: From your vantage point of working in the nascent Asian markets, how does the digital landscape of Pakistan look like?
Adrian Hia: Pakistan has everything in terms of business opportunities. It has a large population. It has connectivity, ranging fiber-to-the-home to DSL. Many good telco's are operating here. The smartphone adoption in Pakistan is amazing. In terms of connectivity, I don't think there is a problem. But every country has its challenges. Any lagging, I think, is because of the country's large size, as it's not easy to reach every single citizen.
BRR: VMware was founded as a startup in 1998, have been acquired by EMC (now Dell-EMC) back in 2004. Please tell us about your business footprint in Pakistan.
AH: VMware does not conduct business directly with the end users. Using the partner model, we have been selling VMware products in Pakistan since the year 2002. Our third-party partners acquire VMware technology and implement it for their local clients. In terms of VMware coming to this market itself, in terms of establishing a physical presence, it has been three years now. We have one service office in Islamabad, and another in Karachi.
BRR: This deal that VMware has just concluded with Meezan Bank - to modernize the bank's IT infrastructure across 571 branches - was followed by a degree of publicity. Is this VMware's biggest deal yet in Pakistan? Or is it that something else has changed in the way you look at this market?
AH: It is a good deal and a significant project for us in terms of market impact and customer benefits. What has changed, though, is that we have passed a tipping point in Pakistan. For the past three years, we have had good business here. We now count among our customers most of the banks, some of the government agencies, a few manufacturing concerns, universities and hospitals in Pakistan.
Having said that; we want to emphasize our partnership with banks in Pakistan. Meezan Bank came forward and said, 'hey, we have benefited so much working with VMware, we are able to do our digital banking and so forth in a better and more efficient manner, so why don't we extend our partnership'. I think that kind of feedback gave us the right forum to share our success with the intent to replicate it among other banking sector players in Pakistan.
BRR: What kind of an opening do you see for your product offering in the Pakistani market?
AH: I believe that success drives success. From a competitiveness perspective, when one of the banks is able to grow its digital services at a much faster pace than the other banks, it will create competition for the banks to go beyond and serve their customers better and faster. For us at VMware, the most important objective is to help the banks make their services grow not only faster but also efficiently and in a secure manner.
BRR: In a layman's speak; please describe your product offering and how it can help to make your local clients more competitive?
AH: First, let me talk about virtualization. Today, traditional servers and data centers require power and cooling systems, which are always a challenge for a lot of our enterprise customers in Pakistan. The machines also require large spaces. There is also the need for manpower to manage them, as data center operations run 24/7. Through virtualization technology, we are able to help the customer to reduce their hardware footprint. So that means you need lesser power, lesser cooling, lesser space, and lesser people to manage data centers.
Second, in terms of operations management, we are able to help our customer automate some of the processes within the banking IT operations. So, from both the perspectives of footprint and process efficiency, we are able to help our customer achieve some cost savings
BRR: What is the average cost of investment for utilizing these services? What about the maintenance costs?
AH: It is really hard to come down to an average cost. It really depends on the scale. We have solutions from server virtualization all the way up to mobility management. Besides offering products for top enterprises, VMware also have products that can address the needs of the SME market.
Cost of maintenance is a function of skilled workers. So we continue to invest in trainings. At the end of the day, the cost of maintenance is not the cost of maintaining the software. It is the cost of maintaining the infrastructure. What is needed right now is more skilled workers and more local talent that has been enabled and trained by VMware. That way, local firms do not have to rely on foreign talent. In that regard, we continue to deliver classes through our education partners via online seminars and trainings. Any of our partners can come on board.
BRR: What are the security implications of making the transition from traditional data centers to the cloud?
AH: Today, the cloud is everywhere. Every online user is using some form of online storage, be it Gmail or the social media. Cloud is a digital transformation that nobody can run away from. This is affecting the data centers, which are looking for more efficient and cost-effective ways to implement their solutions. The only way for them to do so is to go to the cloud.
BRR: Do you think VMware's cloud solutions will be relevant and cost-effective for small and medium enterprises in Pakistan?
AH: We are working on some partnerships with a few government agencies, and also with some service providers, such as telco's, to come up with a certain solution that can address the local SME market. It is going to be difficult for every SME to purchase an enterprise solution from VMware. But they can always go for subscription or pay-as-you-use models.
BRR: How is the Pakistani government facilitating VMware in its entrance into the local market?
AH: In all fairness, the conduct of business in Pakistan is fairly easy. I find no difference in that regard compared to where I am from, Singapore. So far, we have not encountered any problems conducting business here. And we have now been able to open offices here. In terms of embracing technology and facilitating America-based firms, I do not see any challenges or roadblocks going forward.
BRR: How can VMware engage local IT talent in developing its products?
AH: We are already collaborating with the local market, because all of our business is conducted through local partners. In the Meezan bank implementation, we are collaborating with New Horizon, which is a local IT company. We are not here to just do business. We are here to do business collaboration and enablement of new technologies.
In the area of product development, we have been working with our VMware education team. We are trying to work out an enablement curriculum in the higher education space in Pakistan. That will help universities train their graduates in aspects of virtualization and cloud technology.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017