Ministry committed to helping SMEs make digital leap — Wan Junaidi
KUCHING: The Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives is committed to helping small-medium enterprises (SMEs) make the leap towards digitalisation, its minister Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said.
He said although there has been an increase in the number of SMEs going digital as of January this year, there is still room for more involvement among local entrepreneurs particularly in rural areas and those who have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The ministry through SME Corp Malaysia has been entrusted as a leader in one of the initiatives under the National E- Commerce Strategic Direction Plan (NESR) which is to accelerate the implementation of e- commerce among entrepreneurs.
“From 2016 to May 31, 2020, a total of 322,834 SMEs participated in the e- commerce platform while a total of 171,776 SMEs attended training through various programmes from e- commerce strategic partners, associations and government agencies,” he said in a statement yesterday.
According to Wan Junaidi, the ICT sector contributed RM267.7 billion or 18.5 per cent to the gross domestic product (GDP) component for 2018.
He said based on a survey conducted by SME Corp on the adaptation of ICT among SMEs, there was an increase in terms of SME involvement in online business from 26 per cent in 2016 to 37 per cent in 2018.
For 2019, SME participation in online business was 35.3 per cent, while as of Jan 31 this year, a total of 276,176 entities have registered as online businesses through via the Companies Commission of Malaysia, he added. He also said that based on the Malaysian SME Digital 2018 survey conducted by SME Corp and Huawei Technologies Malaysia Sdn Bhd, the majority of SMEs use computers and the internet as a medium of business operations.
“The survey also found that SMEs still face problems to improve business operations from computing to digitisation. This is because SMEs face issues in terms of cost, technology, infrastructure and digital usage skills in the company’s operations,” said Wan Junaidi.
The ministry, he pointed out, has provided various courses and programmes on business digitisation to assist entrepreneurs who are interested in growing their business or converting their business concept to the ecommerce platform.
Agencies such as Insken, SME Corp and Institut Koperasi Malaysia have provided various programmes and courses to help SMEs and micro entrepreneurs, especially for entrepreneurs affected adversely by the Covid-19 pandemic, he added.
“These courses are conducted online and entrepreneurs do not need to attend or spend the night to attend eDagang courses provided by agencies under the ministry.
“In the meantime, I have asked the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives and all agencies under it to conduct research on new initiatives and implement additional programmes to help and further increase the number of e- commerce entrepreneurs,” he said.
He said in order to adapt to a digital economy as a whole, SMEs must do business reengineering by ensuring that their business strategies, processes and infrastructure are aligned and integrated to support digital transformation.
“Moving forward, ICT has a huge role to play in doubling the growth of SMEs not only through improvements in efficiency and productivity, but also in expanding the market reach for our entrepreneurs,” said Wan Junaidi.