**Hwee-Xian Tan**, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Services, SoHo and SME
COVID-19 has thrown Malaysia’s economy into chaos and affected most businesses, especially SMEs, which make up a significant 98.5% of businesses. The country is now facing a harder time with the second wave of COVID-19 infections and many SMEs have started to face the possibility of being wound up.
To survive in the time of pandemic, SMEs need to reassess if their business models are suitable for the new normal. They must also reassess expectations of the market and be more sensitive to the changes in habits.
Omdia’s latest survey shows that Malaysian SMEs’ perceptions are changing: 88% believe digitalization is increasingly useful to improve efficiency and competitiveness; more SMEs believe that technology investment is worthwhile but concern over digital skills is rising as reliance on digital growth increases.
Omdia’s survey also elicited businesses’ beliefs about the crisis’s evolution—SMEs in every industry began to reinvent themselves with digital tools. Implicitly, digitalization has now become a matter of survival.
Although the prevailing wisdom is that the pandemic will fast-track digital transformation among SMEs, an overall ICT budget cut amid a crisis is inevitable. Omdia expects that the pandemic will cause a downward trajectory growth in the total investment of SMEs in Asia & Oceania for 2020 and 2021. This was reflected in the survey—63% of the surveyed SMEs weathered reductions, and only 26% claimed to increase their overall budget. Small businesses, especially startups, will become overly cautious and selective digital buyers.
Malaysian SMEs want to be more customer-centric and improve environmental/safety monitoring
SMEs are facing increasing pressure over workplace management in addition to managing cost and finding new customers
Contact us
Hwee-Xian Tan, Senior Analyst– Enterprise Services, SoHo and SME Thursday 2 June 2022 | 13:30-13:40
Panel: Managing Cost, Security, Governance and Compliance for cloud Wednesday 1 June 2022 | 17:10-17.50 |T echXLR8Asia
Panel: Enabling APAC as a hub of connected intelligence Thursday 2 June 2022 | 16:20-17:00 | TechXLR8Asia