BANKING TECHNOLOGY
Chloride Group powers its Singapore market come back Vilasini Krishnan spoke to Chloride Group’s Keith Hodgkinson, CEO, Tim Cobbold, COO, Lamberto Tassara, President and Etienne Guerou, SEA Vice President on their foray into Asia Q. Why did you choose Singapore as the regional headquarters after a hiatus of ten years and how do you think your presence will affect the Singapore industries? Singapore, being the powerhouse of South East has an excellent reputation for high quality human resources, technical training facilities and methodologies. It is also the centre of our customers in the region, where decisions are made, both for Singapore and the region. Hence, naturally we chose Singapore. We believe our presence here will have a positive impact. We’re recognized in the industry, as one of the foremost companies in the world. We’re well known for our capability, for our reliability and our quality. By investing here we are providing job opportunities and probably the industry’s best training centre. Hence, it will be symbiotic relationship between us, Singapore and its economy. Q. What is the relevance of your business to telecommunications, banking & finance and insurance industries and ecommerce? Chloride fundamentally provides secure power to its clients. We protect mission critical systems which are usually but not exclusively very large computer systems or networks. Chloride ensures that these systems are problem free be it in terms of quality or interrupted power Hodgkinson. Hence, secure power is simply made up of systems or computers that can operate 24 hours 7 days a week and yet maintain reliable, high quality applications. This is vital to businesses such as banking & finance, telecommunications and e-commerce. Our major clients include Credit Suisse, Barclays Bank, Merrill Lynch, Singapore Integrated Resort(s), Singapore Tunnel, SMRT and Bangkok Mass Transit. Any surge in power or cut in supply will prove detrimental to the company as customers will not be able to access the system and may results in loss of millions of dollars. Chloride’s provides protection against this. hese are actually vital components in all systems in those sectors. But we’re also involved in other sectors as well, transportations, airports, traffic controls. We have our systems in
Lamberto Tassara, Tim Cobbold, Keith Hodgkinson and Etienne Guerou at the opening ceremony
major airports around the world. Hospitals, you’ve got operating theatres, imagine if power fails during an operation. Secure communications. We cover many many applications, so when we talk about those sectors which are very important to us, we also have very important customers in other industries.
and also to our master station. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, any technical problems on the customer’s side which cannot be solved locally can be immediately brought to our experts’ attention. Secondly, the regular collation of equipment functionality report from around the world keeps us abreast with any requirements of the system. This is Q. What drove your recent a boon especially for R&D collaboration with IdatechReliable high purposes. So, as Mr Tessara fuel cell energy? quality applicasaid, it’s a very specialist inBeing a foresighted company, tions are vital to dustry we’re in, where skills we are always on the lookbanking & finance are short and that’s why we out for possible changes to industry invest heavily in training be made in our technology. as the profession requires Since batteries and standby a great deal of emphasis on generators are big compocapability. nents in our industry, we are in the pro- the technical cess of identifying alternative sources of that standby power and one of them is fuel Q. So what lies ahead for Chloride? cell. The key to staying ahead is of course Great success. The 117 year old business is one of the oldest companies on the stock by staying well informed. exchange. Our sales are forecasted to grow Q. Rapid evolution is the boon and bane to about 28%.We’re targeting markets like of technology. What is Chloride doing in Singapore to accelerate our growth. We’re order to stay relevant in terms of prod- very strong in Europe and very large in Asia Pacific. I’m confident Chloride will ucts and industrial practices? Key factor to staying relevant is efficiency. continue to be a successful business and Our speciality lies in creating compo- that it will expand its global footprint fastnents that are not only cutting-edge but er than it’s done in the past.CEO Hodgsafe. We are very sensitive to supply and kinson opines that Chloride is only part of demand in the market place. Our remote the way in its journey to success. The mark diagnostic system is an industry leading it made in the industry will remain indelsystem. Information flow from a unit goes ible. His expected successor, Tim Cobbold to the local territory monitoring station, will have “big shoes” to fill indeed. ASIAN BANKING & FINANCE
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