TALENT RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION Talent acquisition and retention remain a significant challenge given that Malaysia continues to face a talent scarcity issue, exacerbated by continuous talent poaching and brain drain due to local talents preferring to work overseas for a variety of reasons, including economic factors such as currency, standard of living, etc. Particularly, in the technology sector, the lack of technologists in key niche fields further poses problems for companies that require highly-skilled professionals who can drive research and development, product development and innovation within the deep-tech space. This is imperative for the development of new products, enhancing existing offerings and also in key areas such as cybersecurity, blockchain, AI, big data analytics and more. RISK OPPORTUNITY Inability to maintain a sufficient and competent talent pool would undermine the development of technological and intellectual capital, potentially affecting speed to market, competitive ability and also overall operational effectiveness and business ability. Talent scarcity could also impact non-technical aspects of the business model, i.e. the provision and delivery of support services, such as customer service and last-mile fulfilment services. The latter are significant in completing the service loop in ensuring a satisfying seamless user experience. Constant talent attrition impacts the collective knowledge body within the Group and may impact operational productivity. Limited local talent and expertise, especially in emerging markets like Malaysia, remain a challenge. Companies operating in this region, the Group included, have to continue to rely on a mixture of local and foreign talents to achieve their product development objectives, which brings with it cost implications as well as indirect implications such as cultural differences, etc. Business and operational challenges pertaining to talent retention and acquisition drive a rethink of present talent management approaches. The focus on talent has enabled a more people-focussed organisational culture to emerge, whereby in addressing talent issues, the considerations of employees as a key stakeholder continues to be viewed as integral to the organisation. Hence, Zetrix AI’s management approach is to focus on providing conducive working environments, ensuring competitive remuneration and benefits and continued staff engagement towards realising the aspiration of becoming a preferred employer or choice brand name for talent. STAKEHOLDERS LIKELY IMPACTED LINKAGE TO MATERIALITY CAPITALS INVOLVED Employees Customers Investors Economic Values Generated Talent Management Product / Service Quality STRATEGIC RESPONSE Rethinking talent management approaches includes complementing present dependence on the existing talent market through the development of talent pipelines. This essentially entails working with universities and local academia to produce market-ready technology professionals who meet Zetrix AI’s requirements. In addition, the Group looks at developing in-house training programmes that would enable the upskilling of existing or incoming professionals with the skills and expertise that the Group requires to support its business growth plans. This would ultimately reduce costs associated with attrition and rehiring of talents as well as training costs, systems and processes, e.g. adoption of blockchain. Refer to the Strategies to Sustain Value Creation section for more information. The Group also prioritise the forging of partnerships with recognised international experts in various fields, allowing partners to each bring their respective expertise to the table, thus shortening the product development time and enabling mutual access to a wider talent pool. This addresses challenges in resource and talent limitation as well as the need to move fast in order to gain a first-mover advantage. The transfer of expertise from leading partner entities also ensures the Group’s internal talents possess the know-how to continue driving innovation initiatives forward. MATTERS IMPACTING VALUE CREATION (cont’d) 54
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