State office plans to give digital boost to SMEs

According to Cisco, Thailand ranked 11th on the Asia Pacific SMB (small and medium businesses) Digital Maturity Index.
Osmep director Suwanchai Lohawattanakul said that SMEs have to transition their businesses into digital SMEs. The Office has collaborated with Cisco to provide training courses related to digital business and digital transformation to the SMEs. The office aims to develop 200,000 digital SMEs by the end of this year. It also will provide e-commerce training to support the SMEs.
“Thailand now has around 3 million SMEs nationwide. Around 2.3 million can be classified as micro-SMEs. Osmep expects that the revenue of SMEs will make up around 43 per cent of the country’s total GDP by the end of this year,” said Suwanchai.
He said the Office this year has a budget of around Bt1.2 billion to develop SMEs nationwide. It expects that it would be able to help SMEs gain around Bt4.8 billion in revenue by the end of this year.
Vatsun Thirapatarapong, managing director, of Cisco Thailand, said that the collaboration will help SMEs run their business smoothly using the Cisco START solution, which would help SMEs with digital transformation. The training course in the first step will focus on manufacturing and retail businesses.
He also said that research firm IDC has created an Asia Pacific SMB Digital Maturity Index.
The index was developed by IDC based on an independent survey of 1,340 respondents across the 14 major economies in the Asia Pacific region. Thailand also ranked No 11, looked at digital maturity of SMBs across four business dimensions: technology adoption and application, digital transformation strategy and organisation, processes and governance, and the capability to source, manage and retain the right talent to enable their digital transformation.
According to the survey, Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) in Thailand are making initial technology investments in cloud, IT hardware upgrades and cybersecurity, as a large majority of them begin their digital transformation journeys.
Taking into account the four dimensions, SMBs in Asean, with the exception of Singapore, were classified into the “Digital Indifferent” stage of digital maturity. The stage is defined as being one where companies’ digital efforts are often reactive to market changes, rather than driven by a proactive tactical approach.
Having the right IT infrastructure in place is critical to meet the evolving needs of SMBs in Thailand and ensure long-term success. The SMBs recognise the importance and 12.1 per cent of respondents say they are investing in IT software hardware upgrades, he said.
However, SMBs in Thailand are also facing hurdles in their digital transformation. Respondents said they were being held back by the lack of insight into operational and customer data (17.9 per cent), lack of digital skills and talent (15.7 per cent), and the lack of a digital mindset or cultural challenges in the organisation (14 per cent).
 “SMEs are very important to the economy. In 2018, some 3 million SMEs in Thailand created employment for 12.16 million people and contributed 43.2 per cent of the country’s GDP,” said Suwanchai. The adoption of the digital economy and utilisation of information technology will directly boost a significant number of new entrepreneurs in the market, enhance competitive advantages and remove market barriers, especially from the micro small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector – the backbone of the economy in most countries,” Suwanchai said.
“We help MSMEs in adopting digital technology and creating new business by offering them various programmes and schemes, including work at the regional level. Indeed, the most challenging and critical issue for many countries in Asean right now is the necessity for digital adoption of micro-enterprises. As a result, this year, when Thailand is chairing Asean, Osmep will organise Asean activities under the theme “Digitalisation of Asean Micro Enterprises”. Its objective is to enhance digital marketing channels for Asean micro-enterprises and formalising digitalised micro-enterprises” said Suwanchai.