Creating solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises is an important focus for Web services provider Emerge Systems (M) Sdn Bhd. Company managing director Raymond Chee shares with Rozana Sani why the particular market segment is important.

Chee says the SharkSurf solution covers every major tool for businesses to have an online presence professionally.

Q: Can you describe your current scope of responsibilities?

A: I’m managing director of Emerge Group and I head the business development operations and business affairs of the company. Emerge is involved in the business of corporate Web and mobile services ranging from Web and e-mail hosting services to software application R&D (research and development) and data centre services.

What I enjoy most at work is the ability to work along my interests, manage talents within the organisation, and work with a team of young, dynamic and creative individuals. With constant challenges comes opportunities to have continuous improvement, lifelong learning experience and to be constantly innovative and creative to bring the business to the next level.



Q: Please elaborate on Emerge’s focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

A: Our products such as SharkSurf are able to benefit and assist SMEs in general. SMEs can leverage on SharkSurf to create a powerful and professional Web site with minimal technical knowledge at an affordable price.

I foresee that in a challenging time like this, more SMEs will resort to having a Web site presence to showcase their profile, products and services, so SharkSurf will definitely benefit them.

For SMEs that are not willing to adapt to new technology, many will close down due to higher operation costs, lower margins and poorer sales. I hope in five years’ time, we would have assisted more SMEs in the country to benefit from this solution.

Q: In your opinion, what are among the key information and communications technology issues faced by Malaysia, particularly those faced by SMEs?

A: Many SMEs are not willing to adapt new technology. They continue to fear and not be receptive to changes. Such a mindset needs to change to survive in today’s fast-paced business world.

Many IT products in the market are complicated to use, and this has created more fear in them. We have created SharkSurf as a Web site tool for SMEs to use easily at an affordable price so that there are no such excuses from them. At RM199, SharkSurf includes a step-by-step guide on creating a Web site in Bahasa Malaysia, English and Chinese.

It covers every major tool for businesses to have an online presence professionally. It includes a control panel and it’s easy to use. Even non-technical users can set up a Web site within one hour.



Q: How are you going to encourage more SMEs to adopt SharkSurf?

A: What we’ve been doing now is to promote and sell SharkSurf directly to SMEs.

However, to assist more SMEs in the country to move their business forward in online mode, we hope to tie up with various Government bodies, business associations, media and organisations to increase the reachability of this solution to more SMEs.

When SMEs improve on their revenues and profits, this will create better prosperity for the nation.