Technology vital for growing SMEs: Exec

The National Business

By CLARISSA MOI
TECHNOLOGY can help small businesses grow and prosper by operating online, according to the Micro Small Medium Enterprise Council president Des Yaninen.
He told the national information and communication technology summit in Port Moresby yesterday that the restriction of movements during the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic lockdown last year resulted in 75 per cent of small businesses losing revenue.
“Technology can help small business owners by moving to online trading, buying and selling,” he said.
There was also loss of productivity, he added.
“This can be addressed by working from home. Even though we saw that a lot of corporate (bodies) were able to dial in and use emails (by working from home), that was an option not available to a lot of our MSMEs (who) really struggled.”
Yaninen added that there was also a general lack of data which made it difficult for the government to formulate a response to the Covid-19.
“And that information was difficult to come by. Technology can be used for direct collection of data.”
He said supply chains in the agriculture sector had also been disrupted.
“A lot of our MSMEs particularly in the agriculture sector lost their produce.
“This could have been alleviated by having the supply chain automated.”
He highlighted the risk of transferring the virus through the handling of cash. Moving to cashless payments and mobile wallets would have helped.
The council plans to have:

  • A data base for all MSMEs combining the IPA, IRC and banks;
  • UP-SKILLING people to using technology to improve businesses;
  • DIGITAL payments and going cashless;
  • EASE of opening bank accounts and access to finance;
  • ACCESS to new markets both domestic and global; and
  • A LEVEL playing field by helping the regulators detect non-compliant operators and putting them out of business.