MAI-listed Beryl 8 Plus or BE8, a leading end-to-end digital transformation consultancy, plans to officially open offices in Australia and Singapore by end of this year as part of its continued international expansion.
BE8 plans to establish additional offices in many international markets within three years through its second and third phase of the expansion, according to the company's chief executive Apisek Tewinpagti.
The company has only one overseas office at present in Vietnam.
Expanding via offices overseas is a core strategic move to further push growth of the company's revenue stream in the long term, thanks to massive opportunities in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) countries, especially in cloud and IT spending as well as BE8's strength in the partnership ecosystem, he added.
Mr Apisek said Australia will be the firm's main focus in terms of international expansion due to the large market size of the end-to-end digital transformation business valued at US$57 billion, 14 times larger than Thailand's, which is worth $4 billion.
Currently, 95% of BE8's revenue stream is contributed from the local market, with the remaining 5% generated by the Vietnamese market. The company expects the contribution from the local market would decrease to 75% within three years, while the remainder would come from international markets and through its joint ventures and strategic mergers and acquistions.
In addition to Australia and Singapore, BE8 aims to open more overseas offices in the second phase in countries such as in New Zealand, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia in the second phase, and in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and America in the third phase. The second and third phases of the expansion are expected to get underway within three years.
Charles Woodall, chief executive of BE8 International, said Australia is the main focus at present as outsourcing is a familiar practice in the country. According to the Australian Computer Society, there is a significant skills gap in the tech industry with a shortage of around 60,000 skilled workers recorded in 2021, particularly in the fields of software development and data analytics.
Some 54% of Australian companies were already outsourcing some of their IT operations in 2021 and this trend is expected to continue, according to a survey conducted by Capgemini in 2021.
Mr Apisek said BE8 booked total revenue of 380 million baht in 2021 and consolidated revenue of 800 million baht in 2022. The company expects its consolidated revenue to reach between 2.5-2.8 billion baht this year.
"Through the business opportunity in region and the group's partnership ecosystem, we are confident of seeing 5 billion baht of consolidated revenue in 2025," Mr Apisek said.
The company expects to list on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at some point after 2025, he said.
Mr Apisek said BE8 is in discussions with many companies on potential joint venture deals and believes there is ample opportunity to form a lot of joint ventures with companies in various industries.