The cloud, especially the private cloud, is the optimal solution for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in order to safeguard their Information Technology (IT) and Intellectual Property (IP) assets, according to Eugene Teow, founder and Managing Director of home-grown Cygnus IT Solutions PLT (CITS).
Founded in 2010, CITS started with the goal to help its customers solve their various IT-related challenges. Since then, the company has gone from strength to strength and recently won the Malaysia Excellence Business Award 2019 in the category of “Emerging IT Solutions” (main pic).
Teow, the founder of CITS, started his foray into IT 6 years earlier, in 2004. “Back then, my goal was to help my teachers to transition from the traditional report card system to a digital system,” he explained.
According to Teow, smaller companies face a larger degree of exposure to cyber risk, owing to their limited size and resources, as well as the lack of capital to invest in cyber risk management tools.
“According to Accenture, 43% of cyber-attacks are aimed at small businesses, but only 14% are prepared to defend themselves. As per reported by Chubb in their Malaysia SME Cyber Prepardness Report 2019, 67% of SMEs believe that only large corporations are more at risk of cyber-attacks than small businesses; yet 84% of SMEs have experienced cyber incidents in the past 12 months, demonstrating that this misconception certainly does not hold water. In fact, smaller companies face a larger degree of exposure to cyber risk owing to their size and resources, as well as the lack of capital to invest in cyber risk management tools.
“Based on my experience, generally clients have no issue in paying, it is just that they lack good advice on how to go about improving their IT infrastructure. Most IT vendors just promote the on-premise servers/solutions they are familiar with, without having the up-to-date knowledge in configuring their solutions. This is where CITS can help,” he adds.
Teow highlights that CITS’s aim is to become a trusted consultation partner of choice for IT and computing services in organisations throughout Malaysia by delivering excellent service and total customer satisfaction, and offering dependable and professional solutions to its clients for mutual growth and profitability.
“As an IT outsourcing and consultancy firm, our objective is to solve our clients’ IT issues. One approach that CITS has found works well with many clients is using a private cloud to host their applications and such in a secure and less-exposed way; in fact many of our clients also call us in to work on their own private solution.”
By moving applications into the cloud (e.g. Accounting / HR software), clients simply have to install the software a single time, and not worry about server hardware failure or the endpoint computers getting corrupted (which would requires a reformat and reinstallation/mapping of the software), Teow highlights.
“Private Cloud application hosting services is just one aspect of CITS’s various services. It also offers various innovative solutions on their Private Cloud such as Endpoint Security solutions, Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions, and Private Cloud-based Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions, amongst others.
“By implementing our cloud-based VoIP solutions, not only that the call rates are lower than traditional analogue phone systems, companies that has presence in multiple location (be it in cities, states or even countries) can communicate among each other in a secured manner for free,” shared Teow.
CITS partners with several globally-famous solution providers in order to provide its clients with the best-in-class software and hardware. These include 3CX, ESET, Exosphere Security, D-Link, and Alfa Networks.
According to Teow, CITS prioritises its capabilities and its client base, relying on word-of-mouth for additional business rather than mass media promotion.
“CITS has always been the final stop when it comes to clients who are looking for a solution. I make it a point to promote my services in such a way that they can contact me when trouble happens, and my job is to clean up the mess. This is my core competency, as the clients tend to believe you during crunch time and they just want their problems solved at whatever cost.”
