by NURUL SUHAIDI / pic credit: sidec.com.my

THE Selangor SME Digitalisation Matching Grant has benefitted almost 300 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with a total allocation of RM1.2 million approved by the state government since the first batch between April to mid-June this year.

The grant is part of the state’s initiative to speed up the digital transformation among SMEs, which includes assisting local start-ups to deploy the Software as a Service (SaaS) and increasing their cloud computing adoption rate.

Selangor executive councillor for industry and trade Datuk Teng Chang Khim said through this programme, the state government is offering SMEs a 50% matching grant up to RM5,000 to subscribe to e-commerce; a human resources (HR) and payroll system; cloud accounting; digital marketing, and electronic point of sale system and payment gateway.

“The grant’s special evaluation committee approved 280 out of 492 applications for the first batch of applications.

“We are on track to achieve our target of benefitting 1,000 SMEs by the end of the year,” Teng said.

Additionally, he said most SMEs applied for digital marketing at 31.8%, followed by applications for cloud accounting at 25.4%, while 16.6% applied to digitalise their HR and payroll system as part of their digitisation initiative.

Teng also welcomed the RM300 million allocation for small and micro entrepreneurs, where RM200 million is to continue the Shop Malaysia Online campaign and an extra allocation of RM100 million for the SME Digitisation Grant.

Currently, Selangor is holding four rounds of the Selangor E-Bazar campaign, which generated RM144.7 million in direct sales and a RM2.95 billion ripple effect on the state economy which benefitted 294,119 local merchants in the state, including 74,837 new merchants.

“Grants and onboarding campaigns are just the first steps as more efforts and resources are needed to speed up the adoption of digital technologies among traditional SMEs.

“This is to re-engineer, automate and infuse multiple intelligences across key business functions,” he said.

The application for the second batch of SME grant will open next month, while the application for digital service providers as authorised solution providers started yesterday.