IBM and COMM-iT partnership in enterprise asset management explained

Dickson Woo, Country General Manager and Technology Leader, IBM Malaysia and Selvaraja Vallyan, CEO, COMM-IT Group discuss their partnership in helping businesses in their AI journey

Established in 2009, COMM-iT is a system integrator, solution provider and leading system implementor in Southeast Asia. A partner for vendors like IBM, Microsoft, Hexagon, Infor and Qlik, COMM-iT’s clients include organizations in oil and gas, shipping, ports and banks in the ASEAN region. It also serves clients beyond the ASEAN region for specific use cases.

With organizations now focused on AI, enterprise asset management is an area whereby AI can make a big difference. For COMM-iT, its expertise in enterprise asset management lies with IBM Maximo. IBM Maximo helps organizations manage their assets by centralizing asset data and integrating various management functions onto a single platform. By incorporating the IoT and AI, it enables features like predictive maintenance, automated workflows and enhanced decision-making.

To understand more about the partnership with IBM, CRN Asia speaks to Dickson Woo, Country General Manager and Technology Leader, IBM Malaysia and Selvaraja Vallyan, CEO, COMM-IT Group to discuss how IBM collaborates with Comm-IT to help businesses in their AI journey, deliver high-impact, AI-driven business outcomes.

Can you tell us a bit more about the partnership between IBM and COMM-iT

Dickson: COMM-iT is our most strategic partner in the areas of asset and lifecycle management tools. In fact, they are the leader from this solution angle. We treasure our partnership very well, especially since we don't have all the expertise, even though we have the license and the best product. We still need to work with partners who understand the industry and the vertical needs well in order to form the entire solution.

Today, customers are adopting more open architecture. They don't want to take any proprietary. So, the openness requires us to work with all the partners that are capable. We can't do it alone today.

COMM-iT has been a partner with us for almost two decades. So, we've been working very well.

Selvaraja: We've done more than 120 implementations, IBM Maximo specifically. And while we do other products now, we are concentrating on IBM Maximo. Out of the 120 implementations, we have never failed a single one. So, we love the product and working with IBM has always been a pleasure.

We have about 50 plus people in the company, and we are a boutique shop, meaning we sell everything end-to-end in the IBM Maximo space. And generally IBM comes to us and says, can you deliver this hard-curly solution? Yes, we can.

We do offer other products, but 95% of the business is IBM. We do oil and gas, utilities, leasing companies, manufacturing, and the list goes on. But the first three would be oil and gas, utilities, and leasing companies, especially those with heavy-duty machinery.

What makes the partnership unique for both of you?

Selvaraja: A number of things. One would be the flexibility that they offer, the help they give to us whenever we require. And every time there's a new product, a new version that comes out, all the training courses are either online or readily available.

On top of that, they don't stop at IBM Maximo. They constantly come back to us and say, these are the new solutions that we have, and they will want us to go to our customers and sell that. So, the relationship is an ongoing thing, and the bright spots are always there.

Dickson: I think the customer's success will be IBM's success, because we cannot be successful without our partners' success. So, I think that DNA, that fabric is very much integrated.

Technology keeps evolving, so from time to time, we do have more new features coming out. Of course, now, a lot of new solutions are all AI-driven. And we definitely have to share and impart the knowledge to our partners, sharing the best of, what are the latest, and all that.

And after that, in order to make it work, we have to have a joint collaboration. How do we then craft a strategy going to the market so that we can then create that mutual value? And then imparting to the customer side to resolve customer's issue.

So, understanding the market, understanding the partner needs from a skill set, of course, from a joint investment, co-marketing, co-creation, and of course, deployment as well. I think that's important, and we keep focusing on that part. It's not about just selling, but it's about the whole journey, from the selling, post-sales, and customer success journey.

How are customers in the industry COMM-iT focused on using AI?

Selvaraja: If you look at, say, for example, the average age of a commercial plane, it's 14 to 15 years and that’s quite a while. There's a lot of things that will happen to the asset.

If you look at power plants, the average age is 30 to 40 years. Now, over 30 to 40 years, what people have done is gather a lot of information. The old way is to use Excel spreadsheets to draw down the data and pull it out and see through and present it nicely.

And with that, for asset management, there are three types of maintenance that people do. One is what you call run to failure. It's just that when something fails, you replace it. The one that they've been using of late, for the many years, is preventive maintenance, which means that they will do things to make sure that the asset works continuously, but there's no fixed pattern. When it fails, also you have to go and run after it.

Now with AI, people are doing predictive maintenance. In other words, what they do is they look at the solution, they look at the data and analyze when it is going to fail and then be prepared. And that kicks in supply chain optimization because you need to have the replacement parts, you need to know where it's coming from. You also need to look at the resources that go into repair.

You can't just throw in anybody to go and do the repair work. You need to have people who are certified, who can do the job. Also think about things like sustainability as well.

So, AI really helps in that area. The amount of data they have captured, without AI, is a tremendous task and can be very difficult. I'm sure Dickson will agree.

Dickson: Yes, from the preventive to the predictability, I think that's important. Of course, with the power of AI, all this can be done.

Predictability will have to increase in terms of forecasting, in terms of preventive maintenance, down to the cost saving as well. With all this data and AI in place, the function is to help you to decide autonomously without any human intervention.

So that helps a lot. For example, if you need to save some power, utilities and all that, with that AI power, it will shut down the public electricity when there's no usage at all. So that helps to save a lot of money and all that.

And that will link to the subject of sustainability. How do you create an eco-friendlier and more sustainability kind of environment? So, AI is to help us to not only predict but also to do things autonomously.

When it comes to AI, do customers know the use cases that they want to develop already, or do you also suggest use cases for them?

Selvaraja: It's a mixture of both. But generally what people do is from the user perspective, they don't care about the process. They want to see the end result.

So, most of the time, they know what they want actually at the end in terms of reports, in terms of processes and so on. That's where they start off. And what we do is we marry that with the information flow as well as the processes, as well as the technology and say this is how you can achieve it.

It takes time. There's a lot of discussion that goes on with customers, with IBM for that matter, to see what kind of solution best fits. Not all the time do we have the answers.

So, we go to the experts around the region, not only with IBM, but also industry experts and say this is how you structure things. So, to answer your question, it's both ways. We also push things to them because we bring in our industry experts and say this is what other people are doing.

But at the same time, they know what they want. And I guess this is an advantage because studies have shown that most customers, most businesses often do not move beyond the POC and to implementation because they're not sure exactly what they want to do with it and the end results of it. They're looking for the ROI.

Does this conversation also come up in the industry that you work with?

Selvaraja: I always say this. Maximo is one of the best kept secrets in the world. Because not many people understand the space and sometimes you say it's nice to have, but actually it's not. People approach us and say this is what they want. Customer success is also easy because this is a proven solution.

So, I don't think customer success is an issue at all. They know the solution, they understand it, they use it as the ROI. Everything is there.

Dickson: So recently, IBM has conducted a global survey across 2,000 C-level, some CEOs, across 33 geographies, through 20 over industries. The findings stated that now more CEOs recognize the importance of having the AI automated tools to be implemented in the organization.

And they found that with this implementation of AI, that actually increases the competitiveness of the organization. It no longer serves just tools or just operational efficiency, improvement, that kind of thing. But it's now become a disruptor.

Over 70 percent of CEOs recognize that this investment is important. In fact, for the new budget now, they started to allocate their budget for all these strategic tools. And AI is one of them.

So now, they're no longer worried about ROI. And I can see that there's also a change of phenomenon comparing 2025 versus 2024. A lot of all these AI tools, especially asset management and all that, in the year 2024, they are still like wanting to do a POC, testing, choose a few use cases and all that.

But come to 2025, they see this as a real implementation. And they wanted to put all these things into a production. And some already see the benefits of quick ROI, even less than 18 months, and some even within a year.

So, it's no longer just nice to have technology, but it's becoming a very strategic or competitive advantage

With that said, what's next for you guys?

Selvaraja: We're going towards renewables, ESG, those are the buzzwords that's going on. Of course, we're embarking on a lot of other AI products.

The good thing about IBM is every other week they introduce something new. So, it's a constant journey to move something. They're acquiring companies, introducing new things.

So, I think for us, we are bringing on more technology, more staff, more people and ramping it up. Renewables are starting to be very exciting.

In fact, it has been exciting for the last six to seven years. Nearly every country is moving to renewables and that's going to be some space that's going to be very exciting. I think there are solutions that IBM has acquired and also is improving on and we are bringing it to the market, and I think we've got a very good reception for that.

Most of our leads are now more towards renewables and ESG. Because that's the buzzword right now and that's the requirement. So, for example, if you want to export to Europe without a relevant ESG certificate, you can't probably no longer do it in 2026.

IBM Maximo provides the base to go to that stage. So, that regulatory requirement is driving the need to not just use AI but also use it in a more sustainable manner as well. I'm glad that regulation has caught up with that because I think our children need to be able to breathe freely and ESG and all of this really helps.

Dickson: I think the ESG subject is interrelated with the advancements of AI because AI enables more automation, more predictability, so that will help a lot of cost-saving in terms of utility, footprint and all that. So that will help to reduce the carbon footprint.

I will say that AI is a star player to achieve sustainability scoring. It's actually intertwined. So, having that AI powered, I think footprint will reduce cost reduction, the parts inventory, the flaws, the QC, all that will be improved. That helps the sustainability part of it. It's intertwined.