No choice but digital for businesses
Published on: Wednesday, February 19, 2020
By: Lorena Binisol
KOTA KINABALU: The Commercial sector has been sufficiently alerted to embrace Industrial Revolution 4.0, or their businesses would not be able to sustain and diversify further, “Unifi Business Club Power Lunch Talk” hosted by Telekom Malaysia (TM), Sabah heard recently.
President of SME Sabah, N.K. Foo (pic), said going digital is way forward. “Otherwise one will become irrelevant,” said Foo.
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He said in the current era of digitization, SMEs need to be able to grasp and adapt to the changes and keep innovating in order to lead the market and be ahead of competitors.
“The key here is to embrace changes, transform our mindset towards digitization transformation for their business and making sure that all aspects of the business are ready to prepare them for this new big wave,” he said.
He said to Future Proof is to embrace all facets of the new digital plain effectively by leveraging the business within the ecosystem to dynamically meet the needs of their respective customers.
Foo, who had more than 17 years of banking and finance experience, said today’s world is even tougher with different set of challenges.
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He emphasised on the capability of one in understanding IT and digitization.
“Today’s session is an eye opener for me, so many digital conveniences to help to compete in the e-commerce market. Google Add for example and many other platforms. Indeed, they are strange and new to us as we belong to a generation that had passed,” said the 63-year-old banker-turned-businessman.
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“If we do not embrace change, we will become dinosaurs.
“As I see it today we had been using sms (short messages services) to send our messages (not free). With upgraded technology we now use WhatsApp for free and it is easy.”
By embracing into digitization, we will be updated with many benefits and information, he said.
“It is either you mutate, innovate, or you are going to be left behind and fizzle out.”
Of course, Sabah being distant from advanced cities doesn’t mean we are left behind. As I said, the young people, they start green, start afresh and they will learn fast.”
He said there would be another engagement session cum workshop between Telekom Malaysia and SME Sabah to give its members further exposure on the government facilitations and grants for those going digital.
Foo is also instrumental in providing members in SME with access to Syariah-compliant financing solution, which allows members to expand their businesses to greater heights.
The session featured a few exemplary business personnel who had evolved and moved forward in their respective business.
Local-born Mary Jim shared her predicament in her 15 years of venturing into community-based social enterprise, dealing with different categories of people, both in business as well as in public.
She said change is a must for everyone regardless of whether they have business or are individuals. The world is changing fast and forward with advanced digitization applications, where it helps people to execute their work precisely.
“Adapting to traditional activities in our daily work is no longer applicable and effective in today’s fast changing landscape. Therefore, we must be ready to evolve and better equip ourselves, or else our business would soon be not able to cope.
“Furthermore, the use of paper should decline as we are embracing E-paper,” warned Mary.
Mary, a “Kampung Girl” received many awards. One of her accolades was being Rural Youth Icon 2018 and most recently Sabah Excellent Women Icon 2018. Her business platform is called MJbyMUS, which helps many communities around Sabah to promote and showcase their respective products in her shop.
Another young entrepreneur, Faeez Fadhlillah, despite his young age, was able to create an online product, a CEO and co-founder of Tripfez & Salam Standard, an innovative, state-of-the-art travel portal for Muslim travellers.
He is also a speaker at international travel conferences and seminars. One of his achievements was named below 30 years old in the Forbes Magazine in 2016 and conferred the Most Innovative Young Leaders Award in 2016.
He said collecting data is very important in measuring businesses for future reference and so on.
Nor Azian Romlan, Director of Maltrade, Sabah, since 2019 helped create path for businesses and export opportunities for SME communities in Sabah.
Al Baser Alonto, Senior Executive of Bank Rakyat, shared how the financial institution had helped young entrepreneurs in expanding their business. Under his stewardship, he had managed to reduce a number of non-performing loans significantly.
He shared his experience in achieving his mission in pushing the boundaries and adding values to the customers and companies alike by working hand-in-hand to help support mutual goals.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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