Telekom Malaysia seeks SMEs

Telekom Malaysia hopes to lure more small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to utilise ICT solutions as tools in reaching out to the market, according to Star Online.

Telekom Malaysia SME executive vice-president, Shanti Jusnita Johari, says this outreach to SMEs was ongoing with platforms such as mybizpoint.com, which allows companies to conduct trade matching automatically.

“The penetration rate in terms of broadband utilisation is between 20% and 30%. It also depends on the type of business,” Shanti says.

According to recruitment firm, Computer People, more than 70% of IT professionals moving to a new job in the past three months have been going to work for small businesses, states Computing.co.uk.

The company came up with the figure based on its own experience of placing candidates into new roles over the past quarter-year.

Computer People MD, Nick Dettmar, says many jobseekers believe they will find greater security of employment working for a SME during the recession.

S Sivagnanam, director of micro small and medium enterprises at the Development Institute, says to make SMEs competitive, the government should provide incentives for ICT absorption under the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Programme, reports The Hindu.

Sivagnanam says creating a common ICT solution for SMEs was impossible but a sector-wise server containing all the information could be set up by the government to improve efficiency and transparency in the sector.

Santosh Babu, MD of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu, says the government wanted more small players from the SME industry to participate in its tenders.