WPS eyes Malaysia as springboard for Southeast Asia AI expansion

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is emerging as a strategic market and regional springboard for Kingsoft Office's global expansion, with the Chinese software company stepping up efforts to grow its artificial intelligence (AI) business, local partnerships and enterprise services.

Xu Liu, vice-president and general manager of global commercial business at Kingsoft Office, said Malaysia's geographical location, diverse business environment and strong commercial ties with China made it an important market for the company.

She said the company's strategy in Asia, including Malaysia, centred on three priorities: AI, collaboration and global expansion.

Xu said Malaysia's national AI roadmap and government initiatives to accelerate digitalisation provide a supportive environment for businesses to adopt AI, while its data protection framework is an important consideration as organisations increasingly integrate the technology into their operations.

She said the country's multilingual business environment also created demand for productivity tools that could facilitate communication across Bahasa Malaysia, English and Chinese.

Xu said WPS Office was building on a common global product platform while adapting its solutions to local business requirements.

"Our strategy is to build on one global product foundation and then localise deeply, so companies can connect their teams and collaborate smoothly, while work across regions becomes simpler and more efficient," she said.

Xu added that Malaysia could serve as a starting point for developing WPS's regional partner network and strengthening local services, with successful business models potentially extended to other Southeast Asian markets.

WPS 365, the company's integrated office productivity platform, combines document management with AI-assisted collaboration, while its local service model provides both online and face-to-face support.

Biwei Qi, deputy general manager of global commercial business and head of Southeast Asia B2B business at Kingsoft Office, said the company was committed to building an on-the-ground presence in Malaysia.

He said Malaysia offered opportunities beyond its strategic location, given its concentration of multinational corporations, Chinese companies with local operations and businesses involved in cross-border activities.

These companies represent potential enterprise customers requiring integrated solutions to facilitate collaboration across markets.

WPS already has nearly 10 million monthly active users in Malaysia accessing WPS Office through mobile devices and computers.

Over the next five years, the company plans to expand its local workforce, strengthen its partner network and develop market capabilities through training, technical support and joint customer engagements, Qi said.

On helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) overcome the cost and technical barriers to AI adoption, he said WPS's integrated platform could reduce software expenditure by bringing multiple productivity functions under one subscription.

Businesses that traditionally purchase separate office applications, PDF software, email services and other productivity tools could access many of these functions within a single ecosystem.

The platform also offers flexible deployment options, including public cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS), offline deployment and private installations on customers' local servers.

For most SMEs, the public SaaS option is sufficient, allowing them to download the software, log in and start using it without substantial IT infrastructure or a dedicated IT maintenance team.

As part of its local expansion, WPS on Friday signed agreements with its first four Malaysian partners: Advisirs Plus Sdn Bhd, Systech Digital Solutions, Protonsonic and Global Digital.

The four companies bring expertise in accounting, customised software development and big data, and will work with WPS to adapt its products and develop AI-powered office solutions for Malaysian businesses and multilingual working environments.

Hong Lim, chief executive officer of Advisirs Plus, a Malaysian and Singaporean AI-driven digital accounting firm, said adopting WPS 365 had reduced the time his company spent on internal and external communications by at least 30 per cent.