Oracle has made a bold move towards reaching out to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia. The company recently opened its first Digital Hub in Malaysia specifically to address the needs of SMEs. The Oracle Digital Hub in Malaysia will enable SMEs to use Oracle Cloud platform for their own purposes, including improving solutions, operations, as well as to leverage these technologies for growth.
The Digital Hub and its emphasis on SMEs in the Asia Pacific is also significant because more than 67% of the world’s micro and SME market is located here. According to a World Bank study, the market accounts for more than 266 million businesses, all of which can benefit from cloud technology.
The Oracle Digital Hub has a newly hired team solely focused on helping grow SMEs, especially mid-size companies and organizations to make use of the cloud in a seamless manner. This is in line with Oracle’s Asia Pacific directives towards digital sales and support, which is based in Kuala Lumpur. The support functions service more than 20 countries including Malaysia, the rest of Southeast Asia, and other countries across Asia and the Pacific.
François Lançon, Oracle Japan and Asia Pacific senior vice president says that “the cloud is democratizing IT; you just need a browser or a mobile phone app to take advantage of it.” He also mentioned that the cloud can help transform small businesses to do things that they have never done before. These include streamlining businesses processes, using an easy-to-use information technology (IT) platform, and to create a better digital customer experience for customers.
Empowering SMEs with the Cloud
Oracle is making it easy for small businesses to buy into these processes, including their branches and line departments, and to introduce a digital transformation in the way they do business. There are distinct advantages to having access to cloud computing applications. On top of that, this would also help enable the use of mobile apps for SMEs. Coupled together, these technologies can help an SME grow the business by allowing more people to access or get in contact with them and their goods and services.
It has been noted that there is a fundamental difference in how enterprises use IT compared to how SMEs do. This may be attributed to the difference in requirements due to the scale of business – there is a wide gap in the amount of automation and use of digital tools between SMEs and enterprises. This corporate digital divide needs to be bridged by SMEs to be able to compete in the open market. This will also allow them to grow their market and catch attention outside of their local area.
SMEs usually do not use cloud technologies because they either lack the infrastructure for it, or they have no need for it to help with their daily operations. It is also possible that entrepreneurs do not know how working on the cloud and using smartphone apps can help their business.
The Digital Hub and its emphasis on SMEs in the Asia Pacific is also significant because more than 67% of the world’s micro and SME market is located here. According to a World Bank study, the market accounts for more than 266 million businesses, all of which can benefit from cloud technology. Using this along with other digital technologies, such as mobile apps, can help SMEs be more competitive and able to contend in a larger market.
