3M Malaysia welcomes the Government’s announcement for Budget 2019, and is pleased that the initiatives listed puts a focus on boosting SMEs to compete on a global scale, attracting foreign direct investments (FDI), optimising healthcare and empowering women leadership across the country. 3M Malaysia is committed to working with the government and both local and foreign companies operation in the country to accelerate the progress of the nation through science and technology.
Strengthening SMEs in Malaysia
As Malaysia set its eyes on becoming a high-income economy by 2020, investing in innovation is a catalyst for the growth and success of businesses. However, due to limited resourcing, SMEs in the country have been slow to adopt innovation as a means of growth. Through the initiatives announced in the Budget 2019, SMEs would be able to scale down on costs to scale up on innovation that will pave the way for them to compete competitively, not just in the local market, but in the global arena.
3M Malaysia is a technology driven company, and over the 50 years that we have been in the country, we have worked with SMEs across various industries to innovate and improve products and processes. We leverage on 3M science to significantly improve productivity and total delivered cost for long term savings.
SMEs trust us to assist them to move up the value chain, and we look forward to working closely with the government to further strengthen local SMEs.
Advancing healthcare in the country
We support the allocation of RM29 billion to improve the quality of healthcare services across the country. As health care is evolving rapidly, it’s even more crucial to ensure that medical products and patient care prevent infection and promote healing. 3M Malaysia understands these challenges and strives to make the jobs of health services easier with reliable, quality products and solutions.
We currently work with hospitals in Malaysia to provide solutions that improve patient outcome and enable healthcare progress. By reducing complexity and reinventing delivery, we help hospitals focus on what’s most important.
Empowering women leadership
It is encouraging to see that the government has put a special emphasis on improving the involvement of women at leadership levels with a 30% target of policy makers and decisions. This is already seen with the historic appointment of our first female Deputy Prime Minister, Yang Amat Berhormat, Dato Sri Dr. Wan Azizah Binti
Dr. Wan Ismail, and we believe this is the step in the right direction to drive real progress and a wider culture of inclusion.
At 3M Malaysia, we support this announcement as it is aligned with our culture of inclusion for innovation and growth. We understand that diversity is important as it brings different perspectives to the table, and we implemented the “I’m in. Accelerating Women’s Leadership” – a global company initiative that focuses on the advancement of women. To date, 38.7% of women make up the senior management team and the gender ratio is 46.9%, which showcases the success of such programs. We hope that with these initiatives spearheaded by the government, it will encourage more companies to incorporate similar steps to diversify their workforce.
Commentary by : Parameswaran Nair, Managing Director, 3M Malaysia
