MyIT magazine speaks to Datuk Teoh Eng Kee, Managing Director of EKTECH Holdings on the company’s foray into digital surveillance and innovative solutions for managed networks.
Established in 2002, EKTECH Holdings is a tech company specialising in providing end-to-end advanced networking and security solutions. Founded by a team of IT professionals led by Datuk Teoh Eng Kee, the company has grown to be a leading hybrid, fixed and wireless, managed network service provider in Malaysia. EKTECH connects businesses through fixed and wireless solutions, designing and building highly reliable hybrid multi-telco networks. The company is also an experienced ELV engineering organisation, providing advanced electronic security and smart solutions.
Driven by its core values of being Customer Focused, Principled, Professional, Knowledgeable and Dependable, the company serves enterprises across all industries including SMEs, oil and gas, plantations, retailers, financial institutions, and property developers, among others.
A FULFILLING JOURNEY WITH EKTECH
Speaking about his journey building the company, Datuk Teoh shares, “My journey building EKTECH, has been very fulfilling, with plenty of thrills and challenges over the years watching my company grow. The company has grown from a team of only 3, to over 50 employees.”
“The people in EKTECH are like a big family, with the original 3 founding members still with us, each heading their own divisions. The company has divested into different areas of services, growing from a single entity, into 5 companies providing different tech services in various industries,” he adds.
Reminiscing on his foray into business, Datuk Teoh shares that after years of working in IT for several local and overseas banks, he experienced a yearning for change and transformation. This propelled him to venture out on his own and start his own IT firm. “EKTECH was established by myself in early 2002 after a lot of soul- searching and a desire to control my own destiny, leaving my job as a Senior IT Manager in a bank,” explains Datuk Teoh.
CREATING A NICHE IN THE MARKET
Not wanting to create just another systems integration company, Datuk Teoh searched for a niche and identified business opportunities in digital surveillance solutions in the industry. This was at a time when banks were still using tape recorders to record surveillance videos.
“Using our expertise in IT, we managed to convert banks’ CCTV systems from tape recorders to digital recorders and networked the solution, integrating the branches for central monitoring and management, reducing downtime and increased surveillance by providing remote monitoring,” he says.
“All these seems ordinary now, but in those days, live video streaming over the network especially for surveillance was pretty advanced. As more digital technologies were introduced into the security industry, our IT knowledge and expertise gave us an advantage over the existing analogue providers, hence we leap-frogged them and managed to provide solutions to many clients,” adds Datuk Teoh.
From here, Datuk Teoh and his team gained experience and expanded into other areas of physical security, helping clients implement more advanced and innovative solutions using video analytics and artificial intelligence (AI). Today, EKTECH is one of the leading providers of integrated security solutions, providing smart and advanced solutions for security such as facial recognition biometrics technology. Armed with a commitment to continuously provide innovative solutions and resolve their clients’ complex IT challenges, EKTECH embraced the tagline Solutions Thinkers, Technologist and Solution Providers. To-date, EKTECH has been involved in many firsts, using leading edge technologies to solve problems.
DELIVERING SUPERIOR SOLUTIONS
Talking about EKTECH’s track record of successful solution implementations, Datuk Teoh shares, “Back in 2006 we were asked to find a solution to stream surveillance videos from a moving police vehicle for remote monitoring in Bukit Aman. We were the first to demonstrate that it could be done and successfully streamed live videos over the 3G network from a moving police vehicle. The project was successfully implemented in the Klang Valley for PDRM.”
This achievement led Datuk Teoh and his team to take on their next challenge which was to discover a solution and demonstrate that it is possible to connect a bank’s ATM wirelessly over 3G network, securely and reliably. “We were called in to find a solution and we successfully demonstrated the first ATM cash withdrawal over a wireless cellular network in 2008. This led to the creation of a new service and line of business for us, to provide wireless 3G services and solutions, and the setting up of a new company called EKTECH Communications Sdn Bhd, providing Managed Wireless Network Services to enterprises,” he beams. EKTECH went on to win several tech awards for this innovative solution.
EKTECH is considered a leader in enterprise wireless 4G/LTE communications and has now evolved to provide other advanced networking solutions such as hybrid connectivity and Software-Defined Wide-Area Networks (SD-WAN). The company manages the network for major corporations in various industries such as financial services, oil & gas, retailing, plantations and many more.
“We were called in to find a solution and we successfully demonstrated the first ATM cash withdrawal over a wireless cellular network in 2008. This led to the creation of a new service and line of business for us, to provide wireless 3G services and solutions, and the setting up of a new company called EKTECH Communications Sdn Bhd, providing Managed Wireless Network Services to enterprises,” he beams.
EKTECH’S ROLE IN MALAYSIA’S DIGITAL FOOTPRINT
With its innovative solutions and state-of-the-art offerings, EKTECH is actively involved in Malaysia’s digital footprint. The company is the first to introduce and use cellular data networks for enterprises between 2007 and 2008.
“We managed to disrupt the market dominated by big fixed- line telecommunication players. We raised the bar for performance as well as lowered the cost for our clients,” explains Datuk Teoh.
This service is used by enterprises in various industries to connect their branches, outlets, kiosks and provide mobility which was previously not possible with fixed lines. The company recognises that with the advent of 5G, wireless services and solutions will be increasingly more important to the advancement of enterprises and the country.
To cater to the market demand for its unique services, EKTECH today employs more than 50 IT professionals and has trained countless network engineers who have passed through the company’s doors. The company foresees that with the advent of IoT, Big Data and Cloud Computing as well as 5G, EKTECH will play a crucial part in providing connectivity and innovation to enterprises in their thrust towards digitalisation.
EKTECH’S BEST-SELLING SOLUTIONS
EKTECH’s unique selling proposition is the ability to provide clients with multi-telco, multi-technologies hybrid solutions. “We are their aggregator – we aggregate all the telcos connectivity under our network to give a total telecommunication solution to our clients,” says Datuk Teoh.
EKTECH’s Managed Network Services provide network solutions and services on subscription basis. The company has long term contracts with large enterprises, such as banks, to manage their networks.
KEY THRUSTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL DIGITALISATION JOURNEY
Explaining about the key thrusts for a successful digitalisation journey, Datuk Teoh says that automation is important, and that clients should automate and digitalise their processes. “Computerise your manual processes. It may seem that labour is cheaper than implementing an IT system, but in the long run, you will reap the rewards of better efficiency and reduction in manpower as a company grows,” he points out.
“Outsource highly technical work to the experts. With the ever- changing IT landscape, keeping up with technology is difficult. Outsource the service to the experts, they have better experience and resources then you can build on and retrain,” he advises.
Datuk Teoh highlights that having data or information at your fingertips is crucial for business success. He elaborates that with business getting more competitive, accessing real time data is crucial in making important business decisions fast to stay ahead of competition.
In addition to that, Datuk Teoh says that the pandemic and lockdown has caused a lot of disruption to how business is conducted, especially with movement restrictions, therefore, business are forced to look for ways to conduct their business, work and interact, not only between B2C but also B2B.
“Processes should be digitalised. Businesses are discovering that they can do away with archaic business processes and interactions. This is where seamless and good data communications will play a major role to connect businesses and people remotely,” he shares.
His advice to business owners in digitalising business operations is to “Take it one step at a time. Start on a small scale and get quick wins with results to show all the stakeholders the potential and rewards of digitalisation.”
“Talk to the experts, find a trusted, reliable and professional partner in your journey. Look for those with real experience, the techies, look past the sales talk. Verify their expertise and credentials. Look for the smaller IT companies, you get more attention from them, then the big boys, as they are more nimble. Better to be one of the largest clients of a small firm than to be one of the smallest clients in a large firm,” he adds.
DELIVERING GREATER VALUE THROUGH AI
With clients constantly looking for greater value in their IT systems, Datuk Teoh explains that AI depends on real-time data to process, analyse, decide and respond to situations in an intelligent manner. “The collection of data is crucial to feed the machine learning system. You need inputs, from IoT endpoints, sensors and devices, customer touchpoints etc.,” says Datuk Teoh.
“EKTECH as the IoT enabler,can help customers connect their endpoints, to ensure reliable transmission of transactions hence the collection of data. With our wireless solution we can connect any devices anywhere, anytime,” he adds.
CCTV systems today are no longer dumb cameras. Our CCTV solutions today incorporate AI video analytics that help clients proactively monitor and alert anomalies accurately without human monitoring. Video analytics are used not only for surveillance but to improve our clients business as well, through foot traffic and customer sales experience analysis. All this uses AI and deep machine learning to enhance our clients competitiveness.
EKTECH’S FUTURE DIRECTION
Currently recognised as a leading wireless 4G/LTE solutions provider, in the future, EKTECH hopes to progress from a niche player to cover all angles of communications and to be a value-added independent service provider of choice for all companies. “We hope to continue our journey as an innovative solutions provider and to deliver creative technical solutions to solve real-life business problems for our clients,” says Datuk Teoh.
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