When the pandemic hit countries worldwide, livelihood and business operations were at stake. Disruption took place at every level and businesses had to respond on multiple fronts in order to safeguard their operational viability, which came under strain from the shock that affected supply chains.
Against this grim backdrop, supply chains continue to operate fairly efficiently after an initial severe disruption as logistics, cargo handling and transportation came to almost a grinding halt due to the movement restrictions and lockdowns
Since the first outbreak, there have been encouraging signs of rebound in international trade volumes, however recovery is still very much uncertain.
In a chat with BusinessToday, Jonathan Oh, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Supplycart shares his thoughts on the current situation facing SMEs and how he plans to ease their struggles.
“When the pandemic hit, SMEs’ supply chain network was hit badly as it was difficult to get materials for their business. Remote work to manage business processes and workflow became much more difficult as compared to previously everyone was used to manual, traditional and physical ways of doing things,” he says.
This had also added towards the negative cash flow and impacted the bottom line mainly due decline in revenue, rising cost and late payments.
Jonathan also highlights that SME business owners would want to lower their business costs, improve productivity and have recurring growth to be better prepared in managing supply chains for the business to be geared for the global market.
Additionally, they would also want simple and affordable digital solutions to cope with current challenges and at the same time, be able to receive quick payments as well as assistance in working capital through reliable, convenient channels.
“Being a Malaysian proud homegrown technology team, we have built 3 key areas embedded into one single platform that aligns the process with the results to enrich experiences, develop collaborations and create value,” Jonathan says.
Supplycart aims to help SMEs by working with them to digitalise their business both front and back and at the same time, enable remote work capabilities in managing their business supply chain.
According to Jonathan, this has resulted in new digital channels, optimisation and improved efficiency for the business and has led to better bottom line, cash flow and because everything is now done in one place thanks to open APIs along with open integrations with existing or new systems.
The platform also allows financing to become much easier thanks to the visibility of RICH data tracked on the platform allowing financing institutions and partners to step in to provide facilitations of payments as well as financing options.
Through Supplycart, SMEs can expect to achieve a recurring growth to be cross border trade ready, lower cost and better profitability, increased productivity and transparency of transactions among others.
However, while the platform aims to ease the struggles of many SMEs nationwide, it is not without challenges.
“Change management has always been an area that SMEs are not used to. Sticking to the motto “why change something if its already working mentality has created a leaking bucket for them and the leak would get bigger and deplete faster,” Jonathan tells BusinessToday.
“We have had companies telling us that they are still using document templates and processes for the past 50 years,” he added.
Another area he highlights is the ability for SMEs to identify the solution that fits them. “It can get overwhelming when there are so many areas to work on and so many solutions out there. Additionally, the perception that digital solutions being costly needs to be convinced and debunked as the realisation of such solutions can be affordable as well as the time cost efficiencies it brings along allows continuous growth for the company,” he says.
Jonathan also believes that constant education, consulting and seeing it through together with the SMEs and MSMEs is important.
“Collectively creating an ecosystem from both public and private working together technology startups like Supplycart, partners and corporates to share experiences, best practices, even access to technology would tremendously boost that adoption by SMEs and MSMEs.”
Supplycart has over 4,500 companies from the region in their database and have been able to establish presence in Singapore and Hong Kong late last year. The company plans to further impact the SEA region this year.
The company is currently looking for strategic investors to journey towards impacting SMEs regionally. They are now fundraising on equity crowdfunding platform Pitchin and the campaign is now Live
