Malaysian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are set to benefit from the recently introduced digital transformation solution by tech giants SAP and Microsoft.
In February last year, SAP Malaysia Managing Director Kok Cheong Hong voiced his support for the MyDIGITAL initiative which is a core component of the National Digital Economy Blueprint. He referred to it as a significant “breakthrough yet realistic” digital vision for transforming the economy of the Southeast Asian economy into a technologically superior one. The SAP MD also believed that this strategy can serve as a form of motivation for local businesses, particularly SMEs, to establish resilient IT infrastructure, and utilize cloud solutions in order to increase efficiency and productivity levels.
To bolster the support given to SMEs in the country, partners of both SAP and Microsoft Malaysia recently offered to work closely with local businesses to handle the entirety of their business transformation process. This would include service-level agreements, operations, and the resolution of any problems that may inevitably arise during migration. According to Hong, SAP’s collaboration with Microsoft for the SAP Business One (SBO) RISE with SAP on Microsoft Azure program is driven by the Malaysian Government’s call for local enterprises to shift to cloud computing.
Moreover, SAP and Microsoft’s joint solution was released after the National Tech Association of Malaysia (PIKOM) encouraged local companies to accelerate their digital transformation efforts in order to maintain a competitive advantage in the Asian region. Malik Murad Ali, the Chairman of the PIKOM CIO Chapter (PCC), stated that digital transformation is essential for building strategies while addressing prospects and difficulties in an environment that has been affected by the global COVID-19 pandemic.
“Local businesses should not be intimidated by digital transformation but view it as an enabler for growth. The SME landscape is especially crucial as many still lag in technology adoption within their business operations,” he added.
SAP and Microsoft Support SMEs Through Joint Offering
SAP Business One aims to help customers fuel profitable growth by gaining greater control over their businesses or subsidiaries, simplifying core processes, and improving decision-making based on real-time data. Additionally, the SME solution can be deployed both on-premise and in the cloud, can be integrated with the SAP HANA platform, and has business intelligence capabilities.
“Local SMEs’ readiness for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and the transition to intelligent technologies on the cloud is a critical thrust to realize this aspiration. SBO is known for connecting and streamlining processes, serving as a catalyst of growth for numerous SMEs in Malaysia and throughout the world,” the SAP MD shared in a statement.
On the other hand, Azure — Microsoft’s global cloud platform optimized for SAP S/4HANA — allows integration with SAP applications and data with Microsoft Teams and Office to increase employee collaboration and improve the user experience (UX). K Raman, Managing Director at Microsoft Malaysia, said the company hopes to provide SMEs a point of entry into a digital transformation that is both accessible and economical through its partnership with SAP Malaysia and the launch of SBO RISE on Azure.
The SBO RISE on Azure intends to help SMEs reduce costs and complexity, as well as provide a secure cloud framework that would keep them protected against cyberattacks, by leveraging both artificial intelligence (AI) and automation capabilities. SAP MD Hong also added that the arrangement using the company’s Business Transformation as a Service (BTaaS) offering ensures that SMEs have all they need to streamline their transformation journeys without having to make significant upfront investments.
