SMEs Will Benefit Greatly From E-Commerce Deployment, Digital Training

By Siti Noor Afera Abu KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 30 (Bernama) -- Malaysian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would benefit greatly from e-commerce deployment, marketing and digital payment training in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, a local e-commerce company said. iStore iSend co-founder and chief new initiatives Tommy Yong said entrepreneurs would be able to gain many valuable insights from the initiative to apply to their businesses. “As the nation is progressing towards the fourth industrial revolution (IR4.0), this is also a great opportunity that would allow SMEs to expand their customer base, enter new product markets and rationalise their business,” he told Bernama. Nevertheless, he said running a business online is not as simple as creating a website and waiting for sales to come in, especially for SMEs who are unfamiliar with e-commerce. “Yes, it was once as straightforward as piecing a blog with pictures and product descriptions but as the trend for online shopping grew, e-commerce platforms began to evolve,” he said. He said there are also multiple channels of online sales from e-marketplaces to social media platforms in addition to their own website. “Businesses should take advantage of selling on more than one channel if not all channels to increase sales,” he said. Hence, he said SMEs should focus on how the measure would benefit them and ensure that they would gain enough knowledge and understanding from the training in order to boost their business further. “They also need to make sure the business is appealing to the market to improve the business,” he said. He said as time changed, there are a lot more avenues where companies could receive aid currently than when iStore iSend first started, especially when they were such a niche industry. “It is a lot easier now as there are more channels available and more venture capitals (VCs) are willing to assist. “We feel that the government is already very supportive of the SME Digitalisation Scheme,” he said. He said it is a great measure that would be very helpful in terms of educating SMEs on the transformation or how e-commerce works because many SMEs are unaware of how digitalisation works as they think it is only website building where the government sponsors and the sales would surge instantly. “For example, there needs to be an investment into it, it’s not just simply launching a website. “This is something that many SMEs cannot afford along with the uncertainty of whether it will even succeed in the first place,” he said. Therefore, he said as the industry is much more complex now since it has turned competitive, creating a space where upcoming entrepreneurs are able to understand e-commerce business better is not only a good measure but could also lead towards the creation of the next successful venture in Malaysia. He said the COVID-19 pandemic has definitely transformed the business ecosystem and retailers who depended solely on daily sales are very much in the dark on when they would be allowed to re-open for business during the lockdown. “In such foggy and uncertain times, many business owners were coerced to digitalise their businesses in order to ensure the businesses are still able to operate in restrictive times,” he said. On a positive note, he said the emergence of more adopters has accounted for the noticeable spike in e-commerce vendors on online marketplaces. However, he said whilst the growing popularity of e-commerce has helped the industry, these early adopters are also experiencing problems with fulfilment, from storage to packaging and logistics. “For example, although the sales started to surge when businesses were shifted online, many challenges were faced namely logistics and manpower allocation. This is because most of them built their business offline and had to shift to online business on short notice,” he said. He added that the government has been rather supportive in providing aids and offering training programmes and more to the e-commerce industry that has rapidly grown compared to 10 years ago. iStore iSend is a developer and pioneer full-featured end-to-end solution provider that offers a smooth omnichannel experience. Currently, iStore iSend processes over five million items each year from a combined 3.483 hectares of warehouse space across four nations. With a 15 per cent increase in volume for manufacturing operation management, the company serve hundreds of businesses, from local to global brands across four different countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and China. -- BERNAMA