Spurred by the year-long buzz surrounding generative AI, more organisations are recognising the need to strengthen their digital capabilities using artificial intelligence (AI). Case in point: The International Data Corp (IDC) predicts 80% of chief information officers in Asia Pacific and Japan will leverage organisational changes to harness AI, automation and analytics to become more agile and insights-driven.
IT infrastructure transformation is among the changes required for organisations to effectively utilise AI. For instance, organisations must ensure their networks are scalable as AI needs a high-bandwidth, low-latency network to deliver accurate and timely results. Given the resource-intensive nature of AI workloads, organisations might also run AI workloads both on-premises and on the cloud to balance system performance with cost efficiency. However, this creates complexity as organisations may not have full visibility of their hybrid IT environment, making it difficult to control and secure their IT (and AI) systems, workloads and apps.
The shortage of tech skills exacerbates the above-mentioned challenges. According to IDC, up to 80% of organisations in Asia Pacific say it is difficult to fill vacancies for IT roles including IT operations, networking engineers, and cloud and cybersecurity professionals. More than half (53%) are taking three to four months longer compared to a year ago to fill technology roles.
Outsourcing IT infrastructure management
To help organisations in Asia get ready for an AI-powered future, ISF NET recently established a new office in Singapore, GLOBAL ISF, which will be the base for its business expansion in the region.
ISF NET has been providing managed IT infrastructure and IT staffing services to international and domestic organisations from its 15 offices across Japan, China and South Korea for over two decades. It has more than 2,000 IT engineers supporting its clients’ IT infrastructure needs, especially in the areas of cloud, networks and cybersecurity.
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ISF NET will invest JPY2 billion (approximately SGD18.5 million) in GLOBAL ISF to better deliver those services to organisations in Singapore and the region. It plans to hire 150 employees for the new office and expects the global business to reach a sales target of JPY3 billion by 2030.
Given the scarcity of tech talent, Singapore and regional companies can offload some or all of their IT infrastructure management to GLOBAL ISF so that they can better focus on business growth. GLOBAL ISF can help with system and network design, set-up, administration, support and maintenance, as well as data centre operation, server hosting, cloud computing, and security infrastructure implementation and management.
As a customer-focused company, GLOBAL ISF will customise those services to meet customers’ unique requirements instead of delivering a one-size-fits-all solution. “At ISF NET, we provide the highest-quality customer care by providing customised services to meet specific needs. I am confident our foray into Singapore will further empower clients with tailored IT infrastructure solutions to help them navigate and succeed in a region as diverse as Asia,” says the company’s president and CEO, Yukiyoshi Watanabe.
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Acquiring the necessary skills
Additionally, GLOBAL ISF will recruit bilingual IT infrastructure engineers from Singapore and other parts of Asia who are fluent in Japanese, Korean and English, and assign them to work on IT infrastructure projects in Japan and South Korea. There are currently 300 ongoing projects in Japan and 30 in South Korea.
By actively hiring bilingual IT engineers, GLOBAL ISF can also help Japanese and South Korean companies find a ready pool of talent and resources to support their expansion plans into Asia. Organisations can flexibly hire individual IT infrastructure engineers or full project teams with project managers for short-, medium- or long-term assignments.
“ISF NET’s expansion into Singapore underscores our commitment to uplifting IT engineering talent across Asia through cross-border knowledge sharing. We aim to foster a globally connected workforce and alleviate the hiring and skills challenges across Asia,” says Kohei Wakamoto, GLOBAL ISF’s managing director.
ISF NET also trains its IT infrastructure engineers to ensure they consistently deliver high-quality, customised services. Watanabe shares that this is done through a skills-sharing approach. “We pair new or inexperienced hires with senior engineers for on-the-job training. Before entering client-facing projects, the former will first undergo several weeks of lectures before engaging in hands-on training with senior engineers for six months or less, depending on the project’s complexity. We’ve found that this approach helps newcomers learn up to four times quicker, and we believe it has been beneficial as 80% of the talent we’ve trained are now working at major companies,” he says.
He adds that the on-the-job training also equips ISF NET’s IT infrastructure engineers with good business communication and interpersonal skills, which enable them to easily integrate into clients’ business environments.
Economies and businesses are moving towards a digital future, so it is crucial to have a robust and resilient IT infrastructure that can support the use of emerging technologies like AI for operational efficiency and business growth. Given the lack of tech talent and skills, organisations must therefore find the right tech partner that can help strengthen their IT backbone – in terms of digital transformation as well as the people to support those projects – to become future-ready.
