Cyberview: Malaysia ready to embrace digitalisation
24 Aug 2021
Malaysia is ready to embrace digitalisation as the need to shift has been made apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Cyberview Sdn Bhd today.
The agency’s head of technology hub development division Shafinaz Salim stressed the need to educate the businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on the adoption of digitalisation.
She noted that there were a number of homegrown solutions that can be tapped for digitalisation.
“Even for us Cyberview, when we talk about Cyberjaya strategy pillar in terms of smart city, we do share our knowledge and experience across other government agencies on smart cities. There are different states with different geographical and financing requirements, not all have the advantage because most of them are largely in the suburban or even in the rural areas.
“But everyone is excited to want to embark on this already. It is just a matter of how they can do this. To begin with, where they can seek help, something they do not have to do by themselves from scratch,” she said during Cyberview’s third Tech Talk for 2021 themed ‘The New Reality of an Endemic: Unlocking Post-Crisis Growth through Innovation’ held virtually today.
Shafinaz was answering a question on whether Malaysia is ready for digitalisation.
Meanwhile, Finnext Capital Sdn Bhd managing partner Aizat Rahim said SMEs need to manage their cashflow better and invest more in innovation to go forward.
“A lot of businesses think that the moment they want to digitalise, it requires huge investments… but that is not true. Technology solutions are really cheap, as low as RM5 per month.
“They have to look at what solutions they need and these days also, the government has came up with a lot of incentives. Take MDEC for example, they came out with some form of grants. A lot of times, the cost to digitalise is really cheap,” he added.
However, Itxotic Sdn Bhd partner Ammar Zolkipli said lack of the right skill sets was a long-term issue that had not been addressed earlier.
“What Malaysia lack is the skill sets. I think policy is one thing that we do not have strength on, therefore the businesses, without strong policies, will try to do whatever they can to keep the lights on and it does not drive growth of innovations.
“It just drives revenue growth,” he said.
Source: Bernama
