PETALING JAYA: Public-private partnership has been touted as the key catalyst to accelerate the digitalisation of Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs), particularly with the development and deployment of digital products and services.
Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC) business digital adoption director Muhundhan Kamarapullai explained the push for the digital economy is for the over 9,700 Malaysian SMEs out there to tap into the US$300 billion internet economy and the way to do so is through public-private partnership (PPP).
By working with the private sector, Muhundhan said, it is important to adopt an outcome-based perspective.
“Ultimately, the focus to support SMEs should be based on a specific outcome with the partners we work with, whether from the perspective of productivity improvement, reduction of cost or even creation of new business models for traditional businesses,” he said at MDEC’s SME Digital Summit panel discussion on ‘Public-Private Partnership to Accelerate SME Digitalisation’.
UOB fintech, ecosystem & innovation senior vice-president and The FinLab co-head Pauline Sim opined that there is a huge need for SMEs to embark on digitalisation due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
With PPP, she explained, the government understands the direction of the national economy, the areas and needs on the ground and has the capability to affect policy to meet those needs.
She believes the end goal is to see the plans and policies put in place having a real impact on businesses.
However, Exabytes CEO & founder, Chan Kee Siak, cautioned that digitalisation is not magic, and that one should not expect results overnight.
“Although, one thing is clear, which has been proven over the course of the past three to four months, SMEs with more digitalisation or technological capabilities survive better during the movement control order compared to those SMEs and large enterprises which are fully offline as their whole operations are pretty much at a standstill,” he said.
MDEC wants to help Malaysian SMEs tap into the internet economy through public-private partnership. – AFPPIX
