Prestariang to ride on data competency centres
KUALA LUMPUR: Prestariang Bhd (Prestariang) is expected to gain from its recent tie-up with the government for the management of data competency centres and courses at institutions of higher learning.
The research arm of CIMB Investment Bank Bhd (CIMB Research) in a recent report said the development of big data competency centres (BDCC) will provide a major boost to higher number of university students in 2015 onwards.
Thus, CIMB Research believed the catalyst for the education services provider going forward would be project awards for training courses and management of data centres which will enhance Prestariang’s future earnings. CIMB Research observed that Prestariang and the Ministry of Education has recently launched the first phase of the country’s BDCC initiative.
The research firm noted the initiative involved four universities and one polytechnic. It added the four universities and one polytechnic are Universiti Malaysia Sarawak ( Unimas), Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) in Kedah, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in Penang, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan Johor.
Meanwhile, CIMB Research pointed out that BDCC is a joint initiative between Prestariang and the Ministry of Education.
The research firm explained that Prestariang will manage the centres and courses under its existing Managing University Sofware as Enterprise (MUSE) and 13P programmes .
CIMB Research noted that University Malaysia of Computer Science and Engineering (UniMY) was chosen as the official academic partner which would be responsible for the provision of training and certification. It observed that University Teknologi MARA (UiTM) will be included in the second phase of the BDCC initiative.
Apart from that, CIMB Research said the BDCC initiative offers industry partnerships with global information technology (IT) players such as Oracle Corporation, IBM Corporation, EMC Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, SAS Institute and Unisys.
The research firm explained that the first phase of BDCC offers seven courses with the industry partnerships, which will result in the entry of new talent with big data expertise into the Malaysian employment market.
It noted that the project is expected to provide jobs for data scientists, data modelers, data analysts and data miners. In the meantime, citing industry sources, CIMB Research analyst Nigel Foo said the county’s demand for big data analytics specialists is expected to increase five times from around 4,000 currrently to 20,000 by 2020.
While the research firm did not include the potential earnings contribution of BDCC into Prestariang’s financial performance forecast, it expects new corporate developments for the company towards year-end. At the same time, CIMB Research noted Prestariang’s ‘IC Citizen’ contract is expected to be extended in 2015.
Moreover, the research firm expects positive newsflow on a major long-term project with recurring income that the company has been working on this year to materialise soon. CIMB Research believed that if the company is successful in obtaining the contract, it will enable the company to reach new heights Hence, the research firm is upbeat about the prospects of growth for Pe-