Singapore—Small-medium enterprises (SME) in Asia Pacific are slowly making their way into being adoptive to today’s business changes across the digital transformation sphere, according to a report from IT and networking company Cisco and market intelligence firm IDC.
With more than 1,400 respondents across APAC SMEs, the report found out that there is a significant increase for digital adoption, showing a 16% growth for SMEs willing to integrate more digital transformation strategies, compared to the 11% growth last year.
On the other hand, 53% of SMEs showed initial willingness to be ‘observant’ at first for their small modern digital changes, while 31% of SMEs showed reactiveness to move into the digital market and are slow in their own transition.
The current COVID-19 pandemic proved to be one of the major reasons for digital transition of SMEs, as statistics showed that 94% of SMEs showed reliance on technological measures for their businesses. In regards to using digital business measures as a way to make roundabout on disruptive events i.e. the pandemic, 55% percent said that such measures are important and are crucial for the business framework.
Some of the leading goals for digitalization of SMEs include market expansion, improved customer experience (CX), prototype kickstart/startup, supply chain, among others.
Cisco estimates that with willingness from SMEs to conduct business presence online, such enterprises are forecasted to bring $2.6–$3.1 trillion in GDP across Asia Pacific, suggesting faster economic recovery by 2024.
