By FARAH FAZANNA ZULZAHA
starbiz@thestar.com.my
KUALA LUMPUR: SME Corp has partnered Microsoft Malaysia, via its Office 365 productivity suite with cloud computing technology, to assist local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute to 41% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020. The partnership would see an expected investment by Microsoft of RM20.8mil in the first year, if adopted by 50,000 SMEs in the country. Microsoft would also reinvest RM41 a year for every user that subscribes to Office 365 through SME Corp.
“We are focusing on lowering the cost of getting to the cloud. We are also looking at training and developing SMEs through our partners and equal systems,” Microsoft Malaysia managing director Ananth Lazarus said at the partnership announcement yesterday.
“The objective of the partnership is to empower Malaysian SMEs with the tools they need to succeed globally, interconnected business landscape where agile and scalable technology infrastructure is key to maintaining the competitive edge,” said SME Corp chief executive officer Datuk Hafsah Hashim.
Empowering SMEs: Hafsah says the opportunity for transforming the way Malaysians did business was enormous, as 99.2% of businesses in Malaysia were SMEs. With her is Ananth Lazarus
She said the opportunity for transforming the way Malaysians did business was enormous, as 99.2% of the businesses were SMEs, employing 56% of the workforce and generating 32% of the GDP.
“Office 365 will benefit Malaysian SMEs to have the capacity to expand their businesses to reach beyond the local and regional shores without the need to invest heavily in IT infrastucture,” she said.
Hafsah said SMEs had to grow at about 8.5% annually to contribute 41% to Malaysia's GDP by 2020.
“One of the ways to achieve higher efficiency and high productivity is to encourage SMEs to use ICT,” she said. (ICT refers to information and communications technology.)
SMEs would also be able to face the current economic situation in Europe and withstand the competition, as 80% of them are domestic-driven.
“The external market now is quite uncertain, but as long as we are able to create the right kind of opportunities for the SMEs, they would be able to withstand the competition,” Hafsah said.
“With free trade agreements and competition now come knocking at their doors, we are preparing the SMEs so that they will be more efficient and productive,” she added.
“We are focusing on lowering the cost of getting to the cloud. We are also looking at training and developing SMEs through our partners and equal systems,” Microsoft Malaysia managing director Ananth Lazarus said at the partnership announcement yesterday.
“The objective of the partnership is to empower Malaysian SMEs with the tools they need to succeed globally, interconnected business landscape where agile and scalable technology infrastructure is key to maintaining the competitive edge,” said SME Corp chief executive officer Datuk Hafsah Hashim.
Empowering SMEs: Hafsah says the opportunity for transforming the way Malaysians did business was enormous, as 99.2% of businesses in Malaysia were SMEs. With her is Ananth Lazarus She said the opportunity for transforming the way Malaysians did business was enormous, as 99.2% of the businesses were SMEs, employing 56% of the workforce and generating 32% of the GDP.
“Office 365 will benefit Malaysian SMEs to have the capacity to expand their businesses to reach beyond the local and regional shores without the need to invest heavily in IT infrastucture,” she said.
Hafsah said SMEs had to grow at about 8.5% annually to contribute 41% to Malaysia's GDP by 2020.
“One of the ways to achieve higher efficiency and high productivity is to encourage SMEs to use ICT,” she said. (ICT refers to information and communications technology.)
SMEs would also be able to face the current economic situation in Europe and withstand the competition, as 80% of them are domestic-driven.
“The external market now is quite uncertain, but as long as we are able to create the right kind of opportunities for the SMEs, they would be able to withstand the competition,” Hafsah said.
“With free trade agreements and competition now come knocking at their doors, we are preparing the SMEs so that they will be more efficient and productive,” she added.
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