KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s start up and small and medium scale enterprises can leapfrog large enterprises to be very successful by leveraging on the digital economy.
SAP Malaysia managing director Terrence Yong said within today’s digital world, constant disruption may leave traditional business models trailing in its wake.
“A good example is Uber which is the world’s largest taxi company which doesn’t own a taxi,”
“Although there’s quite a fair bit of debate happening concerning Uber currently, the point I am trying to make is that this new business model has caused disruption within the world’s public transportation industry,” Yong told Business Times in an interview
“Startups can leapfrog and catch up companies without needing to own assets as long as they own the customer interface, they will be very successful,” said Yong.
This business reality stems from businesses needing to stay relevant to constantly reinvent themselves to stay ahead of the competition.
“There is no guarantee that if you are a leader in the last five years, you will still remain there in the future,” said Yong.
“In SAP’s case, Yong explained that the company had to also reinvent itself to stay ahead of competition.
“Although enterprise resource planning (ERP) was SAP’s traditional strong forte, we realised that the rules of the game has changed.
“That’s why we reinvented ERP and the result is our innovative platform HANA – which essentially is about accelerating the pace of innovation by removing the burden of maintaining separated legacy systems and silo-ed (separate) data, so that you can run simple in this new digital economy.
“Malaysians are also an entrepreneurial lot. Within us all tends to be an enterprising spirit and that’s why we come up with good products and services. Take the case of our client Mydin. From two shops, they are now various hypermarkets and outlets throughout Malaysia.