90 pct of MSC-status firms still at start-up level, says MDeC

"They have not been able to break away from there," MDeC Chief Executive Officer Datuk Yasmin Mahmood said.

MSC Malaysia status is a recognition by the government, through the MDeC, for ICT and ICT-facilitated businesses that develop or use multimedia technologies to produce and enhance their products and services.

For companies to scale up, they need to have a global mind set and be confident that their technology is not far behind in comparison to the advanced countries, she said at a briefing on MDeC's globalisation strategy for 2016 here, on Tuesday.

MDeC started a new initiative called Global Acceleration and Innovation Network (GAIN) last November to help grow high-potential MSC-status companies to be regional and global players.

It is aimed at boosting their annual revenue to RM100 million.

Yasmin said about 88 per cent of IT companies in Malaysia, or 1,413 firms, currently earn an average annual revenue of about RM1.4 million while 10 per cent, or 170 companies, earn about RM26 million a year.

"Only about 24 companies or two per cent of them manage to surpass RM100 million in earnings and average revenue of RM267 million," she said.

She said MDeC has identified about 100 companies so far to be further accelerated through the Immerse, Connect and Excel-erate (ICE) intervention strategy under GAIN by identifying areas where they need help like market access, capability development, risk capital and technology and business disruption.

"In order for us to help them, the company must first have the desire to grow further as MDeC is not here to spoon feed but to help them to accelerate their business," she said.

The whole idea of the GAIN programme is really about accelerating the journey of going global and amplifying the impact of globalisation by leveraging on critical mass, doing it collectively through MDeC and using the government's connections to help them, she added.