PETALING JAYA: Human resources (HR) solutions company MyWave Sdn Bhd’s cloud-based offerings and its recurring income model are allowing the company to thrive even during the movement control order (MCO) period.
Its CEO Khoo Siew Ling (pix) said only the company’s new sales have been affected, explaining that instead of an average 15% jump in its revenue each month, it is seeing only 10% or less now.
“Every month, we have recurring income because we continue to service our clients. Our fundamentals are not affected. About 85-90% of our business is on a recurring basis. The stickiness in this industry is very high,” she told SunBiz.
She explained that payroll, or payroll outsourcing services, is something companies could not do without unless they stop operating. Every month, companies have to pay salaries and statutory contributions to entities such as the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) and Socso.
“Even without new sales, we’re able to maintain our revenue, but we foresee in the next few months there may be a drop (in the firm’s revenue) due to potential layoffs and retrenchment that may happen in the market,” said Khoo.
MyWave was established in 2005 and provides HR software and outsourcing services. Its HR management system Emplx focuses on cost-effective workforce management work flows, automating and improving HR efficiency. The firm is 25% owned by Malaysia Venture Capital Management Bhd.
Based in Penang, MyWave has 48 staff servicing 800 customers and 70,000 users in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and China.
With 80% of its customers coming from Malaysia, Khoo said, 46% are SMEs with 100 or less employees, 36% are large enterprises with over 700 employees, and 18% are medium enterprises with 100-700 employees.
She added that MyWave’s fees are considered affordable for SMEs, as its monthly charges are based on a company’s number of employees, with a minimum contract period of 12 months. However, MyWave is giving a 25-30% discount to SMEs for its HR solutions during this MCO period.
MyWave has adapted to the MCO by converting some of its products to suit current market needs.
For example, Khoo said, its HR consulting contract is usually for a year, but it has since launched a virtual HR product, converting its long-term model into a short-term three-month model.
Another example is its mobile attendance solution, originally meant for tracking employees, but has been adapted to track patients, mobile workers and part-time workers’ individual locations.
Khoo said MyWave also offers short-term HR consulting and advisory services during this period as many HR personnel are confused on the latest developments by the government.
With changes in the treatment of income tax and EPF, HR managers will need easy-to-use technology solutions to quickly comply to new guidelines and rulings.
“All of us are working from home during MCO. There’s no interruption in terms of servicing and supporting our clients. The first two weeks of MCO were busier than the non-MCO period but it has now stabilised. We notified our customers that we’ve diverted our office support line to our mobile phones,” she said.
Khoo noted that digitisation of HR is crucial for business survival and can help businesses save as much as 60% in processing time.
MyWave plans to launch Emplx DIY+, a preset HR policies software to help SMEs with less than 30 staff in one or two weeks. SMEs just need to key in the number of its employees and all HR policies in the Employment Act will already be in the system, speeding up their HR policy setup.
Khoo observed that the largest challenge for SMEs is the ability to pivot what they do to something new due to the lack of resources and lack of data. Watching a company’s cashflow closely may also be a challenge to SMEs, and some SMEs may not track this on a regular basis because they do not have data.
“If SMEs don’t have a proper system to manage the numbers and populate into an analysis, they won’t be able to see their burn rate and won’t be able to estimate how much they need to pay and how long it can last,” she said.
MyWave is one of the HR payroll technology solution providers listed in the SME Business Digitisation Grant launched by the Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation recently, where the government will provide a 50% matching grant of up to RM5,000 per company for SMEs applying to upgrade their systems.
