US-based ASG targets partners in utilities business

ASG Technologies Group, Inc. will explore opportunities in the utilities sector this year, beginning with providing advanced automation solutions to water and electricity distribution companies, an official of the information technology systems management solutions provider said.

“We are expecting some traction in the utilities base this year,” ASG General Manager for Asia Pacific Praveen Kumar told ����ý in a recent interview.

He said the company is in talks with a couple of utility firms, which he described as “mostly water-related.”

“We are going to start conversations with one electricity distribution company, which our partners are taking us to,” he said.

He said ASG wants to help those companies automate meter reading by capturing meters using mobile phones and digitize their billing processes.

“The Philippines was one of our best performing countries globally last year, so we had one of our strongest years in the past,” he noted.

“We had Singapore, Malaysia, and India which did very well last year, but the Philippines was the shining star. We almost tripled our revenues and doubled our headcounts. We do plan to add more this year. Of course, it will not be the same as the proportion that we did last year but we do plan to add more,” he added.

Mr. Kumar attributed ASG’s 2019 performance in the Philippines to the “strong growth” in three areas of its business such as enterprise information management, IT systems management, and digital automation platform.

“Across Asia Pacific, our strength lies in the financial sector. Banks and insurance companies control 60% of our customer base and in terms of revenue. For the remaining parts, we have pharmaceuticals and retail and telecommunications companies,” he said.

Mr. Kumar said that in the Asia Pacific region, he expects this year an increase in the utilization of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in the business sector.

He also sees the “rise of development and operations (DevOps) and its role in interrupting the IT status quo.”

There will also be movements toward technology decisions coming from business leaders versus traditional IT channels, he added.

ASG has been in the Philippines for more than a decade. The company has its headquarters in Florida, United States. — Arjay L. Balinbin