Channelling Cambodia in Phnom Penh

Thirty years of a vicious civil war saw a quarter to a third of Cambodia’s population murdered or starved to death.

Cambodia today is at peace, but remains one of the world’s least developed nations. It suffers from extreme poverty, a structurally weak economy and lack of capacity for growth and development.

None of these facts has stopped the irrepressible Khmer people from leaping into technology with both feet. Cambodia has one of the highest mobile phone-to-landline ratios in the world – reason being that there are not many landlines.

Meanwhile, newer technologies such as wireless networking are also making inroads in the kingdom.

Sop Heap is sales executive at PSC Computer Centre, a Cambodian IT retail chain with outlets springing up all over the country. PSC in Phnom Penh employs
about 50 staff.

"Business is quite good. We have a lot of customers. They buy for themselves and also have deals that they buy from us to sell to resellers," she says.

Sales in the past year have definitely gone up since the previous year and the demographic of customers is broadening.

PSC – a decade-old company – is large enough not to rely on Cambodia’s higgledy-piggledy local distribution network.

It does buy locally sometimes, but also buys direct from overseas centres of IT production, Sop says.

"We have a regular supplier in Singapore, and they ship to us directly," she says. "But we install the software and put it into the case here."

PSC stocks hi-fi equipment, WLAN, printers, peripherals, storage hardware, cameras and PCs from leading brands in China, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan.

"Clone PCs are most popular,’ Sop says. "We do networking and repairs as well, for any computer they want us to repair for them."

Getting quality trained staff  is not always easy, however. Phnom Penh has various vocational schools, but few offer suitable courses.

Most people learn from their IT providers or via their own private studies. And, just like in Australia, it can be hard to keep good staff.

"People want to improve their job position. Maybe they stay one to three years and go on – to get more experience from different types of job," Sop says.