MRCA Event
14
Your Digital Move Business & Funding MRCA hosted a webinar to keep retailers informed on obtaining funding through the right channels and how to digitalise their businesses.
he webinar, which was moderated by Stan Singh, Secretary-General of MRCA, featured two distinguished speakers – Nicholas Tan, Senior Director of SME and Enterprise Development, Fusionex Group, and Chin Kah Leong, Head of Regional Business Development for SMEs, RHB Banking Group.
T
NICHOLAS TAN To the question of how the pandemic has impacted the consumer, Nicholas cited McKinsey & Company’s study which revealed that consumers have resorted to digital means for consumption. “Digital transformation has taken the world by storm. Telemedicine and virtual appointments increased 10 times, e-commerce achieved 10 years’ traction in 8 weeks, and what Netflix took to build in 7 years, took Disney Plus only 5 months to achieve; 250 million students went online with Malaysia Retailer Vol 9 No 3
remote learning in just 2 weeks,” he says. He adds that remote working has increased by 20 times in just 3 months. Nicholas stresses that any organisation that aspires to move forward has to embrace digitalisation. He explains that Fusionex believes that digital transformation is premised on four key pillars namely, engaging customers, internal collaboration, optimising operations, and changing the way you sell. He reminds retailers that consumer activities are going to take some time to return to normal, therefore digitalising business is a necessity to move forward. He advises retailers to constantly be ready for changes in the business landscape and that retailers should be prepared with digitalisation. “Don’t forget that with digitalisation, your customers can reach you 24 hours a day, and
therefore they expect more from you, and therefore you should be faster, optimise all your operations and change the way you sell,” he stresses. He continues to advise that retailers should leverage on digitalisation to update processes and empower customers to interact with retailers digitally. Nicholas points out that retailers need to take stock to ascertain where they are in terms of their digital roadmap, evaluate where they are in their digital journey, and to take action by reaching out and starting the journey. He proposes retailers to explore the full suite of digital solutions that Fusionex has to offer to make digitalisation a success in their organisations. “You have partners like Fusionex and RHB to help you in your digitalisation journey,” he reminds retailers. To Stan’s questions on retailers who are unaware of where to start, Nicholas explains that many retailers equate digitalisation with just selling online. He shares that retailers have the misconception that having an online store is digitalisation, however the full process involves re-looking at internal processes and engaging talents to run the digital business. He adds that digital business is all-encompassing and goes beyond just buying and selling, because it involves delivery, logistics, after-sales service and customer service. Nicholas also points outs that retailers often think that digitalisation requires large funds, but he explains that in going digital, retailers can start with small steps.
CHIN KAH LEONG In addressing funding, Chin explains that retailers need to first understand what their options are and what banks are offering them. These include the current 6-month moratorium, Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) repayment
