Webinar on the survival of SMEs

Dato’ Chua sharing survival tips for SMEs

UTAR's Institute of Management and Leadership Development (IMLD), Belt & Road Strategic Research Centre (BRSRC), Division of Community and International Networking (DCInterNet) and Asia Business Centre jointly organised a webinar titled “Business Survival Lifeline for SMEs: Now and Future” on 24 April 2020. It was hosted on VooV Meeting.

Speaking at the webinar was Asia Business Centre Head of Tax and Financial Consulting-cum-Special Task Force to Facilitate Business (PEMUDAH), Prime Minister’s Department Founding member Dato’ Chua Tia Guan.

The webinar discussed how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can survive the Movement Control Order (MCO) and post-MCO periods. In the webinar, Dato’ Chua said, “SMEs should work out their plans for three important periods. They are during the MCO period, post-MCO which will last until the end of 2020, and beyond 2020. It is anticipated that the economy will be in severe recession in 2020, but may pick up in 2021.”

He added, “The essential elements of SMEs’ survival are the 3Cs known as Cost, Cash flow and Credit. Cash flow is the bloodline of SMEs. According to surveys, about 70 per cent of the SMEs are facing a liquidity problem. The cash flow could support the SMEs operations for about two months only.”

During the webinar, he spoke about stimulus packages introduced by the government to help the SMEs reduce cost and solve cash flow issues, soft loans, and wage subsidy. “To protect the jobs, it is very important for us to protect the SMEs. SMEs play an important role in the Malaysian economy as 98.5 per cent of 1.2 million business establishments are SMEs, and 66 per cent of workforce in Malaysia work for SMEs. The survival of SMEs is critical to ensure the job market will not be affected badly,” said Dato’ Chua.

Dato’ Chua also shared the survival tips for SMEs. The SMEs are advised to revisit their business model and see whether it is still competitive in terms of relevance to customers, sales and distribution channels (online/delivery), financial management (risk management), and is profitable. Dato’ Chua also explained the major challenges faced by the SMEs in their business transformation and how they should prepare for uncertainty.