3 values that will help Singaporean SMEs go digital

Photo credit: Mammela.

SMEs Go Digital is the new hype after Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat announced the new budget for 2017. In this digital era, the government has recognized that even traditional companies must increase their productivity and capabilities with technology. The targeted industries such as retail, food services, wholesale trading, logistics, and cleaning are typically labor-intensive.

Government agencies such as IMDA and Spring would have a whooping US$56 million (or S$80 million) to help Singaporean SMEs go digital. Now, before we get too excited, it is important to learn from successful technology companies who were “born digital.” After all, a lot of startups fail and we don’t want that to happen with our SMEs. Here are three tested and proven values that should guide the way forward.

1. Build personal, not virtual, relationships

As SMEs in Singapore get digital, it is inevitable that some consultants would recommend the replacement of face-to-face meetings with Skype or other digital mediums of communication Before they eliminate that totally, they should take note of this study from Harvard Business Review.

The first problem that SMEs could face with virtual meetings is the lack of focus among attendees. According to the study, 65 percent of participants are doing other work during calls. Forty percent drop the call without notice and 27 percent had fallen asleep at least once during a call. But all of these are less likely to happen in face-to-face meetings.

There is less temptation to multitask, forcing the participants in a conference to focus. Besides, having personal meetings is a good way for people to build relationships.

For example, an e-marketplace for tutoring services called Tutoroo has decided to employ a business model where language teachers and students could meet up physically for lessons. This is a counter-intuitive decision in this digital world and it caught my attention.

Tutors’ gathering in November 2016. Photo credit: Tutoroo Facebook page.

In a call with the founder, Nicolas Vanhove, he shared with me his observation on how easy it is for either side of a virtual meeting to cancel or be inattentive during a Skype appointment.

Throughout cities such as Singapore, Hong Kong, Perth, and Taipei, the learning e-marketplace is creating a close-knit community of teachers and students. Nicolas believes in building his critical mass of native language tutors by organizing frequent gatherings for them to mingle in different cities. The relationships people build from the sharing of ideas and experiences are priceless, and this underscores a point: there are limits to digital communication.

2. Keep it simple

Simplicity is vital to any tech company as they build their digital business solutions. Not everyone has an engineering or technology degree, so if a solution is not that easy to understand and use, people will most likely under utilize it and there goes the million-dollar investment.

Let’s take Airbnb for example. If you have used the platform, you would know how simple it is to find a place to stay through it. Just filter your search by your desired location, price, and period. You’ll instantly have a whole list of available rooms for rent.

Kudos to the company’s engineering team. Just like any other engineering team, they were hired to solve problems, which they do so by iteration and experimentation. They have a culture of sharing information both with internal and external teams.

3. Be disruptive

Change is hard