Illustrative image (Source: Internet) Bangkok (VNA) – Thailand’s small and medium-sizedenterprises (SMEs) ranked third in digital transformation among six ASEANmember countries, behind Malaysia and Singapore, according to a study commissionedand announced by Cisco Systems on May 8.
Cisco partneredwith the Office of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion (Osmep) to increasethe digital capabilities of 200,000 local SMEs, which partly contributed toSMEs generating 43 percent of Thailand's gross domestic product in 2019.
The Bangkok Postquoted Cisco Systems’ Managing Director Vatsun Thirapatarapong as saying thatlocal SMEs ranked third in ASEAN and 11th out of 14 countries inAsia-Pacific in terms of digital readiness.
He said the mainreason SMEs in Malaysia and Singapore do well is government support at thenational level, a factor that is lacking in Thailand.
If the newgovernment continues pursuing a digital economy policy, it should lead to consistentimprovements to the overall economy, he said.
Thai respondentsto the survey said cloud IT software, hardware upgrades and cyber security arethe top three investment technologies for local SMEs at 13.3 percent, 12.1percent and 11.7 percent, respectively.
They said thehurdles to digital transformation are lack of customer data (17.9 percent),lack of digital skills and talent (15.7 percent) and lack of a digital mindset(14 percent).
To help SMEs, Cisco iscollaborating with Osmep to increase digital capabilities by offering onlinecourseware, especially heat-map analytics of visitors for retail, and Internet-of-Thingsfor manufacturing.
This year, Osmep received a budgetof 1.2 billion baht (over 37.6 million USD) to support SMEs and aims to make adifference by increasing the figure to 6 billion baht in the future.
Osmep also plans to help micro-SMEs with annualrevenue of less than 1.8 million baht to be powered digitally, which will raisetheir combined revenue to 2.3 trillion baht within five years.
Statistics showed that Thailand has nearly 3 million SMEs. -VNA
Cisco partneredwith the Office of Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion (Osmep) to increasethe digital capabilities of 200,000 local SMEs, which partly contributed toSMEs generating 43 percent of Thailand's gross domestic product in 2019.
The Bangkok Postquoted Cisco Systems’ Managing Director Vatsun Thirapatarapong as saying thatlocal SMEs ranked third in ASEAN and 11th out of 14 countries inAsia-Pacific in terms of digital readiness.
He said the mainreason SMEs in Malaysia and Singapore do well is government support at thenational level, a factor that is lacking in Thailand.
If the newgovernment continues pursuing a digital economy policy, it should lead to consistentimprovements to the overall economy, he said.
Thai respondentsto the survey said cloud IT software, hardware upgrades and cyber security arethe top three investment technologies for local SMEs at 13.3 percent, 12.1percent and 11.7 percent, respectively.
They said thehurdles to digital transformation are lack of customer data (17.9 percent),lack of digital skills and talent (15.7 percent) and lack of a digital mindset(14 percent).
To help SMEs, Cisco iscollaborating with Osmep to increase digital capabilities by offering onlinecourseware, especially heat-map analytics of visitors for retail, and Internet-of-Thingsfor manufacturing.
This year, Osmep received a budgetof 1.2 billion baht (over 37.6 million USD) to support SMEs and aims to make adifference by increasing the figure to 6 billion baht in the future.
Osmep also plans to help micro-SMEs with annualrevenue of less than 1.8 million baht to be powered digitally, which will raisetheir combined revenue to 2.3 trillion baht within five years.
Statistics showed that Thailand has nearly 3 million SMEs. -VNA
VNA
