CAC is active in corporate venturing – a recent investment is in emotion artificial intelligence (AI) technology, via a US-based emerging enterprise called Affectiva, for instance. Tell us more about why emotion recognition is an attractive investment for an IT and business outsourcing provider like CAC – does it relate to your contract research organisation (CRO) services?
Emotion AI technology can be used for everything from security to accessing mental health. It will allow machines to do certain tasks that they have not performed until very recently. For example, machines can learn to understand when someone is happy.
At this point we are not offering emotion AI in our CRO services, but we have found lots of business opportunity in other areas, such as market research, content analysis, customer experience in retail stores, customer centres, remote medication, gaming and so on.
As a system integrator, CAC is going to provide IT solutions and services with Affectiva’s emotion AI technology to our enterprise customers, to bring new business values that traditional computer systems couldn’t provide.
Why did CAC choose to invest in Affectiva in particular – what was attractive about this company?
We like their strong management and development team. Their technology is better than other players in that space, and can be used in various industries, for example gaming, healthcare, retail and video communications.
What other areas are attractive to CAC and why?
We like to invest in technology areas that will allow enterprises to move away from the current traditional way of doing business, and will increase overall productivity. We like to invest in natural language processing, computer vision, robotics, virtual reality and augmented reality, and blockchain sectors.
CAC serves financial services companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers. You have expanded into the pharmaceutical business transformation outsourcing sector, specifically into CRO work, which CAC has estimated as having a 200% five-year growth rate. Why is this area of pharmaceutical manufacturing growing so fast, and what is CAC doing to serve customers in this sector?
CAC Group has been in the CRO business since 1990. Our subsidiary company CAC Croit Corporation plays a major role in providing CRO services to pharmaceutical companies. We manage and support various operations for our clients, such as clinical testing and even post-marketing surveillance. This enables our customers to improve efficiency in development and quick drug discoveries.
The CRO market is growing due to the increase in outsourcing operation activities by pharma companies to improve efficiency and reduce clinical trial cost. Our CRO business will grow along with this outsourcing growth.
Another major area of business for CAC is providing services for the pension management systems of large banks and trusts. What new trends are you seeing in this space?
Our original developed pension management systems represent the summation of expertise in corporate pension management. We are planning to expand our services in this space by enhancing the current system to support corporate pension funds, welfare pension funds, trust and banking companies and various other organisations. We have interest in fintech and may invest. At this point we have not decided on any specific target.
India and Southeast Asia are also attractive markets for CAC. Give us an update on your corporate venturing activities in these countries – what are the major growth areas you will look to invest in?
We are considering India and Southeast Asia markets as M&A targets, and we are seeking attractive companies with products or solutions related to healthcare IT or advanced technology.