97.2% of businesses in Malaysia are made up of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). This important business sector plays a significant role in the Malaysian economy by contributing 38.2% of Malaysia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). MSMEs also contributes significantly in providing job opportunities.
While MSMEs make up a significant portion of the business ecosystem in the country, a large portion the smaller players within this segment were the earliest to face the brunt of the pandemic. Many had no choice but to close their doors for good while others pivoted their business diversifying into other areas to stay afloat.
Despite this, local entrepreneurs remain hopeful and as the world looks towards life in the post-pandemic era in the horizon, MSMEs are getting ready to re-start their businesses in anticipation of a surge of demand for goods services. The pandemic has forced the MSMEs to differentiate their marketing approach. To stay competitive, MSMEs turn to digitalisation to accelerate their recovery.
Accelerating MSME digitalisation
Realising this paradigm shift, unifi Business is geared to accelerate digitalisation in the MSME segment. Online shopping and e-commerce income grew at a rate of 33% in 2020. Meanwhile, food delivery revenue saw a peak of 116% in Q1 2021. The way we work has evolved too with 40% adopting remote working which involved the utilisation of online communication platforms. Businesses that adopted this digital drive benefitted immensely, this not only ensured the survival of their business, but impressively an increase in growth. These encouraging figures is the impetus for many businesses to take the leap into digitalisation.
“The pandemic has transformed the business landscape in Malaysia and digitalisation is the way forward,” said Ts Mohamad Yusman Ammeran, Head of SME Segment, unifi. “We see positive impacts in many businesses that we’ve supported during this very challenging period and I’m happy to see that these businesses not only recover but have thrived thanks to our digitalisation solutions.”
“unifi Business remains committed to empower these businesses with the use of digital technology for them to rise again and be more competitive, especially in this recovery phase as well as to be better prepared for the future,” he added.
Having already on-boarded over 375,000 MSMEs under its wing, unifi Business has established three essential pillars to support MSMEs in their adoption of digital technologies.
The first digital pillar is the Digital skillset enhancement programmes. A nationwide team of dedicated SME consultants is reaching out to MSMEs to facilitate their digitalisation adoption by providing free training and digital classes to increase the digital awareness.
A large business eco-system support makes up the second digital pillar. Collaborations with MSMEs eco-system partners such as government agencies, technology companies and the banking sector provide financial, technological and upskilling assistance for businesses to embrace digital technology.
Providing digital toolsets and solutions is the third pillar of support for MSMEs to adopt digital technologies. These include fixed and mobile broadband connectivity, digital marketing solutions, e- commerce platforms and cloud-based applications to help the MSMEs grow and be digitally competent to become a future-ready organisations.
In addition, unifi Business provides an important support system known as the unifi Business Club (uBC). Serving as a one stop centre that attends to the needs of MSMEs striving to adopt digital technologies. uBC is the resource hub providing MSMEs useful resource and immediate access MSME community support in financial, technology and more. MSMEs that subscribe to unifi Business get exclusive access to uBC as well as privileges and benefits from unifi partners and special access helpful resources like webinars, talk shows, networking events, business tips and content.
The SMART Approach – powering MSMEs digital adoption
MSMEs can now look forward to a more holistic solution powering their businesses with a new SMART internet approach.
“Business owners need not worry when using our Secure Digital Wide Access Network, or SD-WAN service. We call it the SMART internet solution, where we offer Secured, Managed, Affordable, Reliable and Total Solutions for businesses,” said Yusman.
“With TM’s cloud infrastructure, we are able to provide more flexible solutions for our MSMEs customers, removing the constrain of having limited on premise resources. This opens up possibilities to new solutions that was previously out of reach for MSMEs such as big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and Internet of Things (IoT) to improve time to market, optimise operational cost and achieve overall productivity.”
Meanwhile, cybersecurity plays an important role in safeguarding customer’s digital assets in the cyber world by protecting their network, end user devices, customer information and identity from cyber attackers. With TM’s state of the art cybersecurity operation centre, that will ensure customer’s digital trust and cyber resilience.
unifi Business also empowers MSMEs with digital tools and solutions. The cari@unifi platform helps to introduce and highlight their businesses online while the Digital Marketing Solutions expands MSMEs’ reach to more customers both online and digitally.
Additionally, the Microsoft 365 digital solution can help MSMEs with multiple branches to conduct their business operations either at home, in the office or anywhere at any time with various devices.
Businesses with concerns on the cost of digital solutions can opt for the affordable Micro Pack Package by unifi Business that starts from as low as RM70 and the unifi Mobile Biz package that comes with unlimited data and text especially for entrepreneurs. It is indeed a cost-effective solution to kick start that digital journey.
MSMEs can also enjoy savings of up to 50% through the SME Digitalisation Grant under the Government’s PENJANA initiative. With this grant, unifi Business will assist in the grant application process provided by the Government with the objective of assisting MSMEs to adopt digitalisation in their business operations.
Understanding Challenges and Priorities
The team at unifi Business understands the challenges and priorities of MSMEs. It has identified six digital priorities for MSMEs to focus on in order to accelerate their digital adoption. These are: reaching more customers, increasing profitability, improving customer experiences with digital tools, faster time to market and improving employee experience.
“Towards this end, we are intensifying our efforts to bring assistance to the MSME community soonest possible. We are committed to helping MSMEs to make their business great again with unifi Business broadband connectivity via fixed, mobile and Wi-Fi mobile, complete with digital solutions to expand the market reach and boost productivity,” Yusman told Business Today.
In fact, the unifi Business is already collaborating with ecosystem partners to organise awareness and educational programs such as Sembang Edisi Negeri, Reboot, Jom Bisnes, and SME Empowerment series of webinars, supplemented with Digital Marketing e-workshops and masterclasses. These strategic partners comprise of Government agencies such as MCMC, MDEC, SME CORP, SME BANK, and BSN. Local startups such as NormLab, EasyParcel and BizApps and global technology companies such as Cisco Systems, Google and Microsoft Malaysia also make up to this list of strategic partners.
Business owners can also walk into 83 TMpoint outlets nationwide with dedicated SME corners where business owners can get digitalisation advise from trained unifi Business advisors. These skilled and experienced SME Consultants will provide support and handholding sessions for better understanding of the many digitalisation solutions offered by unifi Business.
Reaching A Wider Market
For next year, Yusman said unifi Business is targeting to offer new digital solutions powered by 5G technology. The new offerings will see 5G augment broadband and Wi-Fi to cater for a higher density of digital applications and connected devices.
Furthermore, variable cloud-based solutions will be the recommended choice for MSME customers to enable a digital business environment for a wider market access and higher productivity through business automations.
“We have the complete range of digitalisation solutions for MSMEs in every step of their digitalisation journey. We look forward to onboard more MSMEs with relevant digital solutions to grow and manage their business, regardless of the stage they are currently in,” said Yusman.
“We use technology to keep in touch, to work, to trade, manage our finances and the list goes on. But technology is just a means to enable the needs of human beings. And so, to make lives, workplace, and businesses better for our customers, we are moving towards becoming a human-centered technology company,” Yusman concluded.
