Prominent ICT business executive Pierre Mallia has been named non-executive chairman of Castille Resources, the Valletta-based IT and finance specialist recruiter.
A computer scientist by education, Mr Mallia was until recently country manager for Microsoft and helped the company grow its business almost fourfold over seven years.
Mr Mallia has also just established a start-up called iMovo to focus on helping businesses increase efficiency and effectiveness in areas such as sales, marketing and customer service, supported by leading edge software and online solutions.
He will bring specialist expertise in ICT to Castille Resources and extensive knowledge of the local business network after having held several high profile posts over the past 20 years.
He is also known as being part of the team which designed the government’s IT strategy between 1998 and 2001 and the National IT Strategy in 1994. He was subsequently involved in innovative start-ups, including an independent software solutions development company and an internet travel and TV dotcom company.
Mr Mallia originally came into contact with Castille Resources in 2005 and was, for some time, one of its customers. He and Castille Resources director Matthew Camilleri found they shared business values and ideas.
“When Matthew asked me to join the board my response was an unhesitating ‘yes’ – it was something new and I wanted to do it,” Mr Mallia told The Sunday Times.
“I believe I can pass on the benefit of my experience with leading business customers, particularly helping Castille in areas like business planning and strategy, and helping its consultants provide an even more specialised service to its customers.”
He explained that there were constant and significant changes in the ICT sector and others like energy and finance. New types of jobs were being created: until just two or three years ago, no one imagined that jobs for search engine optimisation marketing or pay-per-click analysts would be required in Malta.
Mr Mallia said the local IT talent pool was growing, improving and evolving, but he stressed it was paramount quality was not compromised for the sake of quantity.
He pointed out the most sophisticated posts were difficult to fill overseas, let alone here. Malta needed a pool of well-rounded professionals able to adapt to new requirements through ongoing professional training. And as the IT industry became more complex and sophisticated, new specialist talent was needed in other areas like law to cater for the needs of new business models and legal regimes.
“Take cloud computing,” Mr Mallia offered. “It brings about a whole new set of legal issues surrounding matters like trade disputes, jurisdiction, and data sovereignty.”
He added that new industry trends were leading to other challenges, particularly as the nature of relations between employer and employee were shifting. Castille Resources had made inroads in leasing talent, a trend relatively new to Malta but which will become increasingly adopted as ICT impacts not just business models but organisational models as well.
After spending some quality time with his family over the summer, Mr Mallia has set himself a new challenge with iMovo, the firm he has established with the support of two friends and partners – Geoffrey Debono and Dr Tonio Fenech, among others.
The professional services team within iMovo will be focussing on two key areas, business intelligence and customer relationship management, among others.
iMovo will work with customers to create solutions to automate previously cumbersome and labour intensive processes while tapping the vast amount of data trapped within their current systems.
This will help streamline processes such as forecasting, budgeting and sales management and planning, ensuring companies’ resources are aimed at the right places based on scientific data rather than gut instinct.
The solutions will give firms the ability to monitor, instantaneously, how their operations are faring against key performance indicators.
CRM solutions are relatively new to Malta and can help any organisation – not just businesses – increase their efficiency by automating sales, marketing, and customer service processes. Mr Mallia explained all organisations, including the public sector for example, offered some sort of service – the software would assist them to keep track of interaction with their clients, including correspondence or complaints, so that shortcomings are quickly identified and acted upon.
“We will focus on providing professional services supported by technology solutions,” Mr Mallia added. “The people involved in iMovo have been selected for their business industry experience in professional services, banking, manufacturing, the retail and public sector, to ensure they speak the same language as our customers.”
Meanwhile, iMovo is working on finalising collaborations with key international partners. Significantly, it has just signed a contract with business intelligence technology specialist Qliktech. The name has probably never featured in local ICT circles, but the company, originally established in Sweden, is penetrating the international market with ‘a disruptive technology’.
Its tools allow for turnaround times of days or weeks rather than months for projects, while doing away with the need for expensive, complex data warehouses and data marts. Qliktech’s flagship Qlikview business intelligence solution has been sold to more than 15,000 customers in 100 countries. The Pennsylvania-headquartered company listed on the Nasdaq last July and saw its stock soar by 65 per cent.