29 umagazine issue 18 In the last couple of years, the term ‘big data’ has been all the rage. Its value is now known to both government and the private sector. This explains why he has adopted ‘Data Create Value’ as the slogan for his company. Many praise him for being prophetic in predicting the commercial possibilities of big data as far back as nine years ago. Looking back over the teething period of his business, Dr Cheong says humbly, ‘To be honest, when I first started the business, I didn’t foresee the emerging trend in society’s demand for big data. At the same time, what I did at the university in understanding the nature and habits of internet users, as well as in analysing public opinion polls, was mostly putting together the data both online and offline. Hindsight shows we were right in doing what we did – and what we did was essentially big data study. I put it down to serendipity.’ Hurdles and Risks To go from scholar to SME operator, without the halo of the university’s prestige, Dr Cheong faced many hurdles and risks, from getting seed money and human resources, to the speed of product development, not to mention meshing students from different backgrounds into a functioning team and facing down the skepticisms of clients about a company that lacks an established reputation or recognisable name. His answer to these challenges is simple: a strict control over quality, adopting an international standard and strategy for quality assurance. ‘We speak with quality, and provide attentive service to win clients over,’ he says. ‘This has paid off after winning the trust of the government and other users.’ There is one telling detail: in submitting a proposal to a client, Dr Cheong would put in three times as much effort as other service providers. Where others use eight pages, he would use 24. ‘What we sell is service. It is different from selling a product. Building a word-of-mouth reputation takes time plus many trials and errors,’ he says. Reinventing Ourselves on an Ongoing Basis Under Dr Cheong’s leadership, his team offers a range of services, including data-driven data mining, network mining, electronic government, public opinion polls, customer satisfaction surveys, and the building of big data platforms and other operational services. In doing so, he has launched Macao’s first laboratory for network mining and public opinion surveys, with the work spread over four survey centers he runs throughout the Hong Kong-Macao region. In 2015, eRS became the only SME to be invited to the Second World Internet Conference in Wuzhen. 張榮顯博士應邀參加烏鎮世界互聯網大會 Dr Cheong at the World Internet Conference in Wuzhen 張榮顯博士與傳播系吳玫教授、陳懷林教授發佈澳門全民意指數 Dr Cheong, along with Prof Wu Mei and Prof Chen Huailin from the Department of Communication, releases the Macao Total Public Opinion Index
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTQ1NDU2Ng==