As Malaysians, we’re always proud when our local businesses thrive and are able to positively represent our country on the world stage.
This year, 3 Malaysian companies made it to Forbes’ Asia’s 200 Best Under A Billion, which is a list meant to spotlight “200 small and midsized publicly listed enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region with sales under $1 billion and a track record of strong earnings growth.”
The 3 companies featured are Elsoft Research from the semiconductor industry, Pentamaster from the factory automation industry, and ViTrox from the electronic components industry, and they’re all supported by MDEC (Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation) Global Acceleration & Innovation Network program (GAIN).
We got in touch with them to learn a little more about what they do, the biggest challenges they’ve faced so far, what future plans they have in store for company growth and direction, and what sort of exciting developments they foresee in their industry in the next 2 years.
What Do They Do?
ViTrox is a machine vision solutions provider that designs automated vision inspection equipment and systems “ranging from back-end semiconductor, PCBA SMT (printed circuit board assembly using surface-mount technology), to final assembly inspection, and integrated with Industry 4.0 smart solutions and system-on-ship embedded electronic solutions,” said ViTrox CEO Chu Jenn Weng.
Established in 2000 but converted to a public limited company in 2004, they “currently export approximately 74% of goods and services to more than 24 countries.”
“ViTrox maintains a balanced composition of customers from a wide diversified end market such as telecommunication infrastructure, automotive, medical devices, aerospace, computing, and mobile devices,” he said.
The Biggest Challenges They Face
ViTrox’s biggest challenge is “to attract, recruit and motivate engineering and programming talents as a local company,” Chu said.
“We need to compete with well-known and big high-tech MNCs for talents. Furthermore, MNCs can easily get financial support from the government to hire new talents.”
Their Experience With MDEC GAIN
“In our business, we need visibility by our customers, the industries and universities, so we need to work very closely with universities in terms of R&D and also tapping into the human capital.”
“We joined MDEC GAIN for an immersion trip to US where we met and learned from the strong startup ecosystem in the bay area. It was a great learning experience where we were able to network with companies and experienced their work culture,” Chu said.
After Being Featured By Forbes, What’s Next?
This feature is ViTrox’s 5th time on the list, and Chu said, “We will continue to stay focused on R&D, market expansion and talent development” to help industries “achieve zero defects and optimised productivity in their manufacturing.”
“We hope to grow beyond USD1B market cap in the next 5 years,” he added.
In The Next 2 Years
ViTrox “is in a very good position,” Chu said. “We are extremely excited about the 5G, AI and Industry 4.0 development, in which these developments will transform the entire world towards a digital economy.”
“We believe many of our customers, primarily the OSAT (Outsourced Assembly and Test) and EMS (Electronics Manufacturing Services) in the semiconductor and electronics assembly industries will benefit from these megatrends.”
sourced from: Vulcan Post
