Energy & Technology

CIMB Group Holdings Bhd has completed a pilot to test the settlement of tokenised sukuk using tokenised deposits in a controlled environment, paving the way for broader applications enabled by blockchain technology. These potential applications include instant, or atomic, settlement for cross-border transactions, as well as the democratisation of investment assets — such as enabling bonds to be sold in smaller amounts that retail investors can more easily afford. The pilot was carried out through CIMB Islamic Bank Bhd in connection with a RM1.68 billion issuance under CIMB Islamic’s existing RM10 billion senior sukuk wakalah programme, with tenors of five, seven, 10 and 15 years. Of the total issuance, RM1.38 billion was issued in tokenised form and subscribed to by 12 institutional investors, while the remaining RM300 million was issued as a traditional sukuk. The order book was covered 1.73 times, with the pricing date set at Aug 19 and settlement completed on Aug 27, according to Sylvia Wong, regional head of tokenisation at CIMB Group Wholesale Banking. The key distinction between CIMB’s pilot and an earlier pilot conducted by Khazanah Nasional Bhd lies in how settlement occurred. CIMB’s pilot involved settling both the tokenised sukuk and tokenised deposits, meaning the financial asset and the cash were both settled on-chain — though the tokens mirror legal records that continue to exist within the traditional system. A tokenised deposit refers to a bank deposit recorded as a digital token on a blockchain, effectively representing commercial bank money in digital form. In contrast, Khazanah’s tokenised sukuk, which settled in mid-May, was paid for using fiat currency, or the ringgit, through traditional payment rails rather than blockchain. In that case, only the financial asset was settled on-chain, while the cash portion moved through conventional channels. “For our pilot, we created tokenised deposits to settle the tokenised sukuk, so both of these settlements are on the blockchain,” Wong said, adding that the blockchain used for the settlement is called CIMB Blockchain Connect. The digital asset custodian (DAC) involved in the pilot — the entity responsible for safeguarding clients’ tokenised assets — is not among the two DACs currently registered with the Securities Commission Malaysia (SC). “For this pilot, we cleared with the SC that a DAC licence is not required. We just need the ability to custodise these assets and the deposits,” Wong said during a press conference. What It Means for Ordinary People Wong explained that the central feature of the pilot is atomic settlement, where a buyer’s money and a seller’s asset change hands at exactly the same instant. She noted, however, that this concept holds limited relevance for individual consumers, who can already transfer and settle smaller sums instantly through existing payment infrastructure such as DuitNow. Settlement remains far from instantaneous in the institutional market, though. When large sums of money are sent overseas — for purposes such as funding a child’s education — the process can take several days as funds move through traditional channels involving multiple banks. “Now, with blockchain technology, if everyone is on the same blockchain, it happens literally instantaneously,” she said. The pilot nonetheless follows a “digital twin” approach, meaning the on-chain token mirrors traditional legal records rather than replacing them entirely; the process is therefore not conducted wholly on-chain. “The technological capability [for atomic settlement] is there, but are we ready to go [completely] instantaneous? We may not be ready just yet. Imagine, it is fine if it is RM100, but it is a different story if the amount is RM100 million, for a bank. Banks are looking for less friction, but not frictionless for now,” she said. Adopting a digital twin model means banks such as CIMB are investing in testing tokenised solutions through blockchain technology, even as traditional legal records and processes continue to run in parallel — meaning cost savings have yet to materialise. However, as more processes shift on-chain in the years ahead, banking operations could become faster and more efficient, while tokenisation could also help democratise asset classes by making them more accessible to retail investors. Making Financial Markets More Efficient According to a press release, the pilot was carried out as part of CIMB’s participation in Bank Negara Malaysia’s Digital Asset Innovation Hub, which offers a controlled environment for financial institutions to test new digital asset applications. CIMB has also been engaging with the SC on the broader development of tokenised capital market products. The completion of the pilot was announced at Menara CIMB in Kuala Lumpur, at an event attended by Finance Minister II Senator Datuk Seri Amir Hamzah Azizan. Amir Hamzah said the pilot demonstrates how Malaysia can build on its established strengths in Islamic finance and capital markets as financial infrastructure becomes increasingly digital. “Malaysia has developed deep capabilities in both Islamic finance and the capital markets. The next step is to ensure that these strengths continue to evolve alongside changes in technology and the way financial transactions are conducted. This pilot is important because it moves tokenisation beyond theory and tests how digital financial assets and commercial bank money can work together in a controlled environment. The objective is not digitalisation for its own sake, but to explore whether technology can make financial markets more efficient, transparent and connected while preserving strong standards of governance, investor protection and shariah compliance,” he said. Novan Amirudin, group chief executive officer of CIMB Group, said the pilot provided the bank and regulators with practical insights into the operational, legal and regulatory requirements involved in tokenised financial transactions. “This pilot allows us to test how tokenised financial assets can operate alongside existing market infrastructure and, importantly, how tokenised deposits can be used for settlement. The potential benefits are practical. Greater automation and faster settlement could reduce friction in financial transactions, improve liquidity management and increase capital efficiency. The experience gained from this pilot will help us assess how these capabilities can be developed further in Malaysia and, potentially, across regional and cross-border applications,” he said. Beyond Technology: Partnership

For decades, the economics of manufacturing have favoured scale. Bigger companies could afford better factories, more sophisticated machinery and greater automation. Smaller manufacturers competed with what they had. Far East Paper Products Sdn Bhd thinks that equation needs to change. The Malaysian company has spent almost half a century making products that rarely attract much attention but quietly keep industrial supply chains moving — paper cores, angle bars, edge protectors, paper pallets and other specialised packaging components. Now, it is preparing for something considerably more ambitious: taking some of the technologies transforming its own operations and making advanced automation more accessible to other SMEs. It is an unexpected next chapter for a company whose roots stretch back to 1976.   From Paper to Technology Far East Paper began as a paper core manufacturer. Today, it operates from a 170,000 sq. ft. facility producing customised, high-performance and 100% recyclable paper packaging solutions for corporate B2B customers. Its portfolio includes seamless industrial cores designed for demanding applications, alongside protective packaging and patented construction products such as FETUBE and FEPANEL. The company has received the FMM Excellence Award and maintains ISO 9001, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018 certifications covering quality, environmental management and workplace safety. Yet management increasingly describes its direction using terminology that sounds closer to technology than traditional manufacturing: Industrial Technopreneurship. Behind the phrase is a fundamental change in where Far East Paper believes manufacturing advantage will come from. Producing a quality product remains essential. But producing it consistently, efficiently and predictably — while using technology and data to continuously improve the process — is becoming equally important. The company is consequently investing R&D resources in Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (ASRS), Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and enterprise software designed to create a more connected digital manufacturing environment.   When Automation Changes the Worker Introducing technology into an established factory is not simply a matter of buying machines. Processes must change. More importantly, people must change with them. As a second-generation SME, Far East Paper has decades of manufacturing knowledge embedded within its workforce and operating culture. Its challenge is to preserve that knowledge while changing how the factory functions. Management developed what it calls the “Industrial Trinity” to guide the transition, combining traditional manufacturing expertise, digital infrastructure and physical automation. Crucially, the company does not position automation primarily as a means of eliminating workers. Instead, it wants to upskill employees who once operated conventional production processes into people capable of controlling increasingly sophisticated technological systems. In Far East Paper’s vision, the factory worker does not disappear. The job evolves.   Green Is Easy to Say, Harder to Manufacture A similar discipline underpins its sustainability strategy. Paper gives the company an obvious environmental proposition: its packaging solutions are designed to be recyclable. But Far East Paper argues that sustainability cannot stop at the material itself. Its “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” approach has been supported through investment in its manufacturing facility and internationally recognised environmental and safety systems. That has required capital and, according to the company, a refusal to compromise standards simply to obtain cheaper materials. For industrial customers, such decisions are becoming increasingly relevant. A supplier’s environmental practices, certifications and material choices can affect the sustainability commitments and reputational risks of companies further along the supply chain. Going green, in other words, is becoming part of doing business.   What If SMEs Shared the Smart Factory? Far East Paper’s next project takes its transformation beyond its own factory. Under its TKS brand, the company plans to develop a 10.5-acre smart industrial hub in Selangor built around what it calls a “Shared Utility” model. The idea is to allow multiple SME tenants to access centralised advanced infrastructure, including ASRS and AGV capabilities, rather than requiring each company to make the entire investment independently. It attempts to solve an uncomfortable problem surrounding Industry 4.0. Manufacturers are constantly told they need to automate. But sophisticated automation demands capital, technical expertise, space and maintenance — precisely the resources smaller manufacturers often have less of. If Far East Paper’s model works, part of that barrier could be reduced. Instead of every SME having to build its own smart factory, some of the technology becomes shared infrastructure. It would represent a significant evolution for Far East Paper: from modernising its own manufacturing operations to creating an ecosystem that could help other manufacturers modernise theirs.   What Comes After Paper? There is another development the company is keeping deliberately under wraps. Its R&D team is working on a new product rooted in circular sustainability that, it says, will reconsider the environmental footprint associated with the final stage of the human life cycle. Details remain confidential ahead of its planned unveiling. The secrecy adds intrigue, but the larger story is already visible. A company that started with paper cores is now developing patented products, investing in automation, building shared smart-manufacturing infrastructure and exploring entirely new applications for sustainable materials. After nearly 50 years, Far East Paper’s challenge is no longer proving that it can manufacture paper products. It is proving how far the knowledge accumulated from making them can travel. And if its shared-factory experiment succeeds, Far East Paper may not just be automating its own future. It could help smaller manufacturers afford theirs.  

A modern car can tell you that something is wrong. The harder question is figuring out exactly what. As vehicles have become more sophisticated, the business of repairing them has changed with them. Electronics, sensors, control modules and increasingly complex engineering systems mean that a problem appearing in one part of a car may have originated somewhere else entirely. For drivers, that complexity creates a new kind of problem: uncertainty. What actually needs repairing? Does that component really need replacing? And can you trust the person giving you the answer? Volks Maniac Garage has built its business around solving precisely that. Founded in 2016 and incorporated as Volks Maniac Automobile Sdn. Bhd. in 2023, the Shah Alam-based specialist began with strong Volkswagen roots. Today, its work covers scheduled servicing, wear-and-tear repairs, major repairs, advanced diagnostics and performance solutions for German vehicles. Its customers come primarily from the Klang Valley, although some travel from other parts of Malaysia and even Singapore. What brings them there, however, is not simply the ability to repair a car. It is the ability to understand what is wrong with it first.   Diagnosis Before Replacement For decades, the image of a mechanic was largely mechanical: tools, engines, components and grease. That picture is becoming outdated. As vehicles become more technologically advanced, diagnostics have become a larger part of automotive expertise. Reading a fault code is one thing. Understanding what caused it—and whether replacing the obvious component will actually solve the problem—is another. Volks Maniac has made that distinction central to its approach. Rather than moving immediately towards replacing parts, the workshop places emphasis on identifying the root cause of a problem before recommending what should happen next. Just as important is explaining that diagnosis to the customer. It addresses a fundamental imbalance in automotive repair. Most drivers do not possess the technical knowledge to independently determine whether a proposed repair is necessary. They depend on the workshop not only for technical expertise, but for an honest interpretation of what their vehicle needs. In that environment, transparency becomes part of the product.   A Market Outside the Dealership When Volks Maniac started, the opportunity was closely connected to Volkswagen. There was demand for workshops capable of understanding the vehicles at a specialist level while providing owners with an alternative to the traditional dealership environment. The market has since widened. More owners of German and European vehicles are looking for independent specialists, but their expectations have also increased. They want technical capability, sophisticated diagnostics and accountability alongside the accessibility of an independent workshop. Volks Maniac is responding by evolving its positioning towards becoming a broader European Engineering Specialist. It is a significant transition. Specialisation helped establish the company’s reputation. Expansion now requires it to apply that credibility across a wider range of vehicles without becoming just another general workshop.   Can Trust Be Scaled? The bigger test will come as the company expands geographically. Volks Maniac wants to build a larger footprint across Malaysia, but opening new locations creates a problem familiar to many service businesses: physical expansion is easier than replicating expertise. A second or third workshop can carry the same signage. It can use the same equipment and offer the same services. But will a customer receive the same diagnosis, communication and technical standard? That is why the company’s current investments are focused as much on systems as expansion. Volks Maniac is strengthening its operating processes, workflows, team capabilities and internal structure so that its specialist approach can eventually be reproduced across multiple branches. It is also deliberately avoiding expansion that moves faster than those systems can support. That restraint may ultimately matter more than speed.   The Workshop of the Future Volks Maniac’s next chapter will take it further from its original Volkswagen identity while retaining the specialist culture that built the business. Its ambition is broader German and European vehicle coverage, a stronger Malaysian footprint and an organisation capable of delivering consistent technical standards wherever its name appears. The opportunity is growing because cars themselves are changing. As vehicles become smarter, repairing them will demand more than the ability to replace a failed component. Workshops will increasingly need to interpret complex systems, identify the real source of problems and explain those findings to owners who may understand less and less about what is happening beneath the bonnet. Technology may make the car smarter. But it also makes the person diagnosing it more important.  

MTN Group Ltd, Africa’s largest mobile-phone operator, and Dubai-based tycoon Tarek Al Ashram will jointly develop data centres to power artificial intelligence on the continent. Al Ashram, who is also the co-founder of KKR & Co-backed Gulf Data Hub, will use his own investment firm to back the new venture, named Africa Data Hub Holding Ltd, he said in response to queries. “We see significant potential to bring our experience in developing and operating large-scale data centre platforms to African markets,” Al Ashram said, adding that Africa Data Hub will “help shape that growth.” While Africa has the fastest-growing and youngest population in the world, it has fallen behind in the global race to build out local AI capacity. Hyper-scalers including Microsoft Corp, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Amazon.com Inc already offer cloud services in Africa, but the continent still accounts for less than 1% of the world’s AI data centre capacity, according to World Economic Forum data. Although large-scale AI data centres — including a one-gigawatt facility planned by Microsoft and G42 in Kenya — have so far not materialised, Al Ashram said he sees growing demand for data centres across the continent. Africa now presents a “similarly compelling opportunity, driven by strong underlying demand, rapidly expanding digital economies and an increasing need for resilient and scalable infrastructure,” to what the Middle East has experienced over the years, Al Ashram said. For MTN, which operates across 16 African markets, AI forms part of a broader strategy to generate future revenue streams. Telecommunications companies globally are investing in data centres to help meet growing consumer and enterprise demand for AI, while also capturing a share of the income stream generated by hyper-scalers. “The approach that we are taking on the building of our AI business is to partner with third parties, and the entity that we are partnering with has built data centres in the UAE,” MTN chief executive Ralph Mupita said at an event on Tuesday. “We are taking a phased approach and will start building out 150 megawatts of AI data centre capacity.” The venture plans to build facilities in Nigeria and South Africa to process MTN’s own workflows, while also renting out capacity to hyper-scalers, other enterprise businesses and governments, which are increasingly seeking greater sovereignty over their data sets, Mupita said. MTN has been purchasing land and negotiating power agreements to ensure it can carry out a multiple-phased buildout of AI data centres across the continent, Mupita added.

MCE Holdings Bhd has secured RM54.28 million in 40-month supply contracts from Perodua to provide various automotive electronics and mechatronic components, including audio display, reverse camera and advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS)-related components for an internal combustion engine (ICE) model. In a statement, MCE said the project marks the company’s first vehicle audio display and ADAS-related components project for an ICE vehicle, building on its existing capabilities in infotainment systems for electric vehicles and further broadening its portfolio of higher-value components and systems. “The contracts were awarded to MCE’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Multi-Code Electronics Industries (M) Bhd, with production slated to begin in the fourth quarter of the financial year ending July 31, 2027,” the statement said. Production will be carried out at the group’s newly launched MCE Auto Hub in Serendah, Selangor, with an estimated total investment cost of RM4.95 million, marking a significant expansion of the company’s manufacturing capabilities to support this latest contract win. The contract award represents a strategic milestone for MCE as it continues to diversify beyond its traditional strength in electric vehicle infotainment systems, positioning the company to capture a broader share of the automotive electronics market by extending its expertise into internal combustion engine vehicles as well. This move aligns with the group’s broader strategy of expanding its product offerings and strengthening its position as a key supplier within Malaysia’s growing automotive components industry.

Alibaba announced on Sunday that it’s selling HK$80 billion (about US$10.2 billion) worth of shares to help fund its push into artificial intelligence. If completed, this would be the biggest primary follow-on share sale ever by a company listed in Hong Kong, and the third-largest in the world this year, behind only Alphabet and Intel. Alibaba says every cent of the money raised will go toward building out its “full stack” AI capabilities — covering chips, infrastructure, and AI model development. The company plans to sell 710 million shares at HK$112.70 each, a 3.6% discount to its last closing price. It hasn’t given a detailed breakdown of how the money will be split across these areas. This comes just a week after Alibaba’s latest earnings report, where it revealed it has already used up nearly half of its three-year, multi-billion-dollar spending plan. The company also said it now expects to recoup its AI investments in about 2.5 years, faster than the 3 years it had estimated earlier, thanks to strong demand. Still, profit for the quarter dropped 75% year-on-year as AI spending ramped up. CEO Eddie Wu said the heavy spending now is necessary groundwork to capture future growth. Sources familiar with the deal said demand from investors — including sovereign wealth funds — was strong enough that Alibaba increased the size of the offering. Morgan Stanley, HSBC, UBS, and CICC are handling the deal as joint bookrunners. Because the offering wasn’t registered under US securities law, American investors can’t take part. The broader context: AI spending has exploded globally since 2022. In the US alone, the four big tech giants — Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta — are expected to spend a combined US$725 billion on AI-related infrastructure in 2026.

Technology was supposed to make running a business easier. Instead, many entrepreneurs now find themselves surrounded by software—accounting platforms, dashboards, reporting systems, automation tools and increasingly, artificial intelligence. Each promises greater productivity. Each also asks users to learn another system. CEO of Gold-Cheers Holding (M) Sdn. Bhd – Mohamed Ayub Khan. For large companies with dedicated teams, that may be manageable. For a small-business owner already juggling customers, employees, cash flow and compliance, technology can sometimes become another job. Gold-Cheers Holding (M) Sdn. Bhd. sees an opportunity in that contradiction. Rather than asking how much more technology can do, the Malaysian company is asking a different question: how much easier can it become to use?   When Accounting Becomes a Conversation One answer is Senang Akaun AI. Gold-Cheers developed the voice-driven accounting platform around an unusually simple proposition: instead of requiring business owners to learn how an accounting system works, why not allow them to speak to it? Users can record transactions and manage financial information through natural conversation, with the platform designed to reduce the technical barrier traditionally associated with accounting software. The idea says something larger about where Gold-Cheers believes business technology is heading. For years, digital transformation largely meant convincing businesses to adapt their processes to software. Artificial intelligence potentially reverses that relationship. Systems can increasingly understand natural language and respond to the way people already communicate. In other words, people may no longer need to learn the language of software. Software can learn theirs. Gold-Cheers is applying the same philosophy to SenangBrain AI, an intelligent business assistant designed to automate repetitive work and help organisations draw useful insights from their data.   The Digital Divide Has Changed Access to technology used to be largely about whether a business could afford it. That problem has not disappeared, but another divide has emerged: whether people can actually use the technology available to them effectively. Gold-Cheers serves SMEs, entrepreneurs, cooperatives, government agencies, educational institutions and other organisations. Across those groups, it identified a recurring problem. Businesses did not necessarily need more features. They needed fewer barriers. That distinction is particularly relevant as AI adoption accelerates. Companies everywhere are racing to add artificial intelligence to existing products. But adding AI does not automatically make software more useful. A powerful system that remains difficult to understand can simply create a more sophisticated form of frustration. Gold-Cheers is taking the opposite approach: use AI to remove complexity. That may prove particularly relevant across Southeast Asia, where millions of smaller enterprises represent an enormous market for digital solutions but differ significantly in resources, technical expertise and readiness.   Scaling Simplicity The paradox is that making something simple can be technically difficult. A platform that feels effortless to the customer still requires infrastructure, product development and systems capable of handling increasing numbers of users reliably. Gold-Cheers is therefore thinking about scale at two levels. The first is technological. Platforms such as Senang Akaun AI are intended to serve potentially large numbers of users without requiring resources to increase at the same rate. The second is more human: trust. As adoption grows, the company has to ensure that its products remain reliable, accessible and genuinely useful rather than accumulating complexity as more features are introduced. Its growth strategy combines continued product development with ecosystem partnerships and measured operational expansion. The company is also looking beyond Malaysia. The challenges it sees among local SMEs—financial management, productivity, digital adoption and limited technical resources—are hardly unique to one country. That creates the possibility of taking solutions developed around Malaysian business realities into the wider Southeast Asian market.   The Next Battle in AI Gold-Cheers ultimately wants to build more than individual software products. Its longer-term ambition is an integrated ecosystem where businesses can manage finances, operations, reporting, compliance and decision-making through connected intelligent tools. Getting there will require partnerships with government agencies, cooperatives, educational institutions and industry players, alongside continued investment in its technology. But the bigger question may be whether Gold-Cheers can protect the idea that differentiated it as those products become more sophisticated. The technology industry has traditionally competed by offering more: more features, more functionality, more processing power. AI may change the equation. As intelligent systems become increasingly powerful and widely available, the advantage may shift from who has the most technology to who makes that technology easiest for ordinary people to use. The future of business software could therefore become surprisingly simple. The smartest system in the room may be the one you barely have to think about.  

South Korea’s dominant chat app operator Kakao Corp said on Friday that it plans to spin off its chat app-based platform business into a new company, tentatively named KakaoAI, while retaining its investment operations under a firm to be renamed KakaoX. Through this move, the company is seeking to address a conglomerate discount and strengthen business specialisation, Kakao said in a regulatory filing. The company expects the new entity to relist on the Korea Exchange on Jan 27, 2027, following a planned split on Jan 1. KakaoAI will focus on AI, advertising, commerce and the KakaoTalk chat app platform, while KakaoX will manage and develop holdings across areas including fintech, content and mobility, Kakao said. The company set 2030 targets of six trillion won (US$4.34 billion or RM17.57 billion) or more in revenue, along with an operating margin above 30%, for KakaoAI. Meanwhile, KakaoX has been set a target of 10 trillion won or more in revenue for the same year. Kakao reported consolidated revenue of 8.1 trillion won in 2025, according to the company. Kakao also pledged 300 billion won worth of share buy-backs and cancellations over the next three years following the split.

Most people never think about the systems keeping a building alive. The cooling runs. The electricity stays on. Fire protection sits quietly in the background. Servers continue processing data. Employees arrive, work and leave without giving much thought to the engineering infrastructure surrounding them. Until something stops. Managing Director of Zofar Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Sdn. Bhd – Chow Kok Loong. For Zofar Mechanical & Electrical Engineering Sdn. Bhd., that invisible dependency has been the foundation of a business more than two decades in the making. Established in 2002, the Malaysian company began in building maintenance before expanding into mechanical and electrical engineering, covering air-conditioning and mechanical ventilation, electrical systems, fire suppression, facility upgrading and, increasingly, data centre infrastructure. Its job, stripped of the engineering terminology, is straightforward: keep its customers running.   When Downtime Becomes a Business Risk That responsibility has become considerably more important since Zofar began. Buildings are smarter and more technologically dependent. Commercial facilities are under pressure to consume energy more efficiently. And the rapid expansion of data infrastructure has created environments where reliability is no longer merely a facilities-management concern. For a data centre, even a relatively small disruption can carry significant operational and financial consequences. It changes the role of the engineering company maintaining the systems behind it. Zofar identified this issue early. Businesses could find contractors to install or repair equipment, but what they often needed was a technical partner that understood their facilities over time—one capable of responding when problems emerged and anticipating what would be required next. The company consequently evolved from predominantly building maintenance into integrated engineering and lifecycle support, spanning system design and installation through testing, commissioning, preventive maintenance and upgrades. The shift reflects a larger change in the industry: maintenance is increasingly less about fixing what has broken and more about preventing the interruption in the first place.   Building a Business That Can Take the Shock Zofar is also applying the idea of resilience to itself. Its “622 Business Strategy” divides its targeted revenue mix across three areas: 60% project execution, 20% spare-parts trading and 20% maintenance and facilities management. The mathematics reveals the strategy. Engineering projects can generate substantial revenue but remain exposed to construction and investment cycles. Maintenance contracts and spare-parts activities create a recurring layer around that project business, reducing dependence on any single source of income. As the company grows, however, complexity grows with it. More projects mean more sites, suppliers, customers and technical requirements—all of which have to be coordinated without sacrificing the responsiveness that helped build the company in the first place. Zofar has established dedicated Coordination and Supplier Management teams to manage that pressure while strengthening relationships with global technology partners. Its challenge now is familiar to many growing companies: becoming more structured without becoming slower.   The People Behind the Infrastructure There is another part of Zofar’s business that is less visible than its engineering. Its workforce is entirely local, reflecting a deliberate commitment to developing Malaysian technical talent. Women account for approximately 40% of its employees—significant in an industry traditionally associated with a predominantly male workforce. For Zofar, developing technical capability is not separate from its growth strategy. The more critical the infrastructure it is trusted to manage, the more important the expertise of the people behind it becomes. The company has similarly begun embedding sustainability into operational decisions. E-waste and project materials are channelled through licensed recovery partners for recycling where possible, while a Sustainable Purchasing Policy gives preference to recyclable materials and products with lower environmental impact. These are relatively practical measures rather than grand environmental declarations—and that is largely the point.   Preparing for What Cannot Stop Zofar’s next ambition is to move further from being regarded as an M&E service provider towards becoming an integrated engineering partner, particularly for data centres and other critical infrastructure. Doing so will require deeper technical capabilities, stronger systems and partnerships, and an organisation capable of coordinating increasingly complex work at scale. But the fundamental proposition has changed remarkably little since 2002. Modern economies depend on an enormous amount of infrastructure that most of us rarely see. As buildings become more connected and businesses more dependent on uninterrupted technology, the cost of that infrastructure failing only increases. Zofar operates in the space between everything working normally and everything suddenly not. In that business, success is often almost invisible. Nothing happens. And everything keeps going.  

Buying technology has never been easier. Making it work for a business is another matter. For Asia Plus Office Automation Sdn. Bhd., that distinction has shaped nearly two decades in an industry where machines, software and increasingly sophisticated automation are readily available—but where the expertise required to turn them into productive business tools remains far less interchangeable. Founder of Asia Plus – Mr.Anson. Established in 2008, Asia Plus provides office automation, print finishing and web-to-print e-commerce solutions to corporate offices, educational institutions, government agencies and commercial printing businesses across Malaysia. Its portfolio includes its ROYALTECH® house brand alongside selected technology solutions. But the company has increasingly built its identity around what happens after the equipment arrives: consultation, technical expertise, training and after-sales support.   The Machine Was Never the Whole Answer Asia Plus spotted the problem early. Businesses had access to an expanding range of office and printing equipment, but purchasing the right machine did not necessarily mean they knew how to use it effectively—or integrate it into an existing operation. Many suppliers were built around the transaction. Once the sale was completed, customers were largely left to navigate workflow problems, technical issues and productivity challenges themselves. Asia Plus saw an opportunity to occupy the space between selling technology and making technology useful. That distinction has become more relevant as businesses pursue automation and digitalisation. The question is increasingly not simply what technology should we buy? but what will it actually change? For Asia Plus, the answer should ultimately appear in productivity, profitability or the creation of new revenue opportunities.   Automation With a Business Case Technology can eliminate manual processes, streamline workflows and increase capacity. But automation without a clear operational purpose can just as easily become another expensive piece of infrastructure. Asia Plus therefore works with customers to understand how a solution fits into the wider business before focusing on the equipment itself. Web-to-print e-commerce, for example, represents more than moving a printing process online. Properly implemented, it can alter how orders are received and processed, reduce manual intervention and potentially open new commercial channels. Print finishing technology can similarly affect turnaround times, capacity and the range of services a commercial printer is able to offer. This business-outcome approach is now influencing Asia Plus’s strategic direction as it expands its technology portfolio and strengthens ROYALTECH®.   The Value of the People Behind the Technology There is an irony at the centre of automation: the more businesses depend on machines, the more valuable the right people can become when those machines stop working. For production-driven customers, downtime is not merely inconvenient. It can interrupt workflow, delay orders and directly affect revenue. Asia Plus has consequently continued investing in technical talent, troubleshooting capabilities, training and after-sales service—even as price competition intensifies. It is an investment customers may rarely notice when everything is working correctly. That is precisely the point. Products can often be sourced elsewhere. Technical knowledge, responsiveness and an organisation willing to remain accountable after a sale are more difficult to substitute. Asia Plus believes this support ecosystem has been central to building long-term customer relationships and differentiating the business in a market where competing on price alone can quickly become a race to the bottom.   Building ROYALTECH® for the Next Chapter The next stage of the company’s development will place greater emphasis on its ROYALTECH® brand while continuing to broaden its print finishing, web-to-print and office automation capabilities. But Asia Plus is not defining that ambition simply through a larger product catalogue. It intends to continue investing in the people and organisational capabilities surrounding those technologies, with the aim of building a stronger and more resilient enterprise rather than pursuing expansion for its own sake. It is a relatively traditional philosophy for an increasingly digital industry: technology matters, but trust still matters more. Since 2008, the machines have become smarter, workflows more connected and automation more sophisticated. That evolution will continue. Yet for the businesses buying those technologies, one question remains surprisingly human: when something goes wrong, who will be there to make it work again? Asia Plus is building its future around having an answer.