KUALA LUMPUR: With the global business services (GBS) industry making a fundamental shift from cost reduction to higher value problem-solving, it is important for Malaysia to groom “chameleon workers” to facilitate the country’s move up the value chain, said Accenture.

Senior managing director of Accenture Operations Global Delivery and Solution Development Manish Sharma said Malaysia has been ranked third in global management firm AT Kearney’s Global Services Location Index since 2004, after China and India.

Malaysia is already moving away from commoditised work — generally termed as low-value business process outsourcing — as it knows it would not be able to compete anymore against countries like China and India based on cost arbitrage and economies of scale, said Manish.

Instead, Malaysia is shifting its focus to niche technical skills, knowledge and expertise in advanced and sophisticated areas of outsourcing through what is termed as knowledge process outsourcing (KPO), he said.

“To build a talent pool that can support this move up the value chain, Malaysia needs to groom chameleon workers. These employees will not just have the technical skills and knowledge for KPO, they will also be adaptable to keep up with the breakneck pace of technological advances,” said Manish.

Accenture’s Technology Vision 2016 research, which surveyed 2,000 global information technology and business executives, found that the ability to learn quickly or “shift gears” was seen as more important than having deep expertise for a specialised task, which ranked as the fifth most important in the survey.

“Chameleon workers exhibit the two top attributes that companies look for: proficiency with digital technology and a willingness to embrace change. Many of these chameleon workers will be millennials, who became the largest segment of the workforce in 2015,” he said.

The Technology Vision 2016 survey also found that 80% of employers see this new pool of workers as a key competitive advantage for companies in the digital age, where disruption is a way of life.

Meanwhile, Manish said Malaysia is on track to meet its goal for the digital economy to contribute to 18.2% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), adding that digital technology will be one of the most significant value drivers over the next decade.

Amid the shift in the GBS industry, Manish said Intelligent Automation has been key for Accenture. Over the past year and a half, the group has successfully automated over 20,000 roles without losing a single employee.

“At Accenture, we believe technology gives us the power to invent new, more inclusive ways of accomplishing work,” he said.

“The reality is that our people are regularly reskilling in order to manage the robots doing the bulk of boring, repetitive and easily-measured tasks,” said Manish.

Accenture had, in November last year, expanded its Accenture Delivery Centre facility in Kuala Lumpur, in line with growing demand from clients. Currently, the facility hosts over 300 staff with its scope of services including digital marketing, accounting and finance, and call centre.