by AUFA MARDHIAH / pic credit: recommend.my

LOCAL service industries are optimistic about 2022 following a resilient recovery last year.

According to a survey by Recommend.my, since the surge of the pandemic, the industry’s service provider has faced many challenges including difficulty in finding local manpower with the right skills (18.4%), rising cost of materials (17.3%) and uncertain customer demand (13.8%).

The survey showed 57.5% of the 120 participating local small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the industry successfully maintained or increased revenue last year compared to 2020, 20.8% have adapted and increased their revenue by up to 25% and 9.2% increased their revenue by 25% to 50%.

Alas, 17.5% of SMEs experienced a decline in revenue by over 50%.

The home improvement sector was the most affected by rising material costs and reluctance of customers to spend more money while home maintenance vendors saw an uptick in average revenue from repairs and simple installations.

This was because of the ability of home maintenance professionals to continue operating during the Movement Control Order for essential repairs like water leaks and electrical blackouts.

Recommend Group co-founder and CEO Jes Min Lua expected the volume of home and local services projects to increase this year as 60% of businesses are optimistic about recovery by the end of it.

“We are also taking steps to acquire more high-quality service professionals to meet the demand.

“Recommend Group has already vetted over 10,000 companies and independent service professionals in Malaysia and is actively working with them to standardise service scope and prices, improve service quality, enable cashless payments and provide strong service warranties and insurance protection,” she said in a statement yesterday.