Selangor Information Technology and E-commerce Council (SITEC), a key project rolled out by Selangor State Government unveiled the soft launch for its e-commerce training program at University Selangor (Unisel) on Monday, June 29th. The programme was well attended by more than 300 students, representative from Mdec and business leaders.
SITEC aims to help 100 young entrepreneurs and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the state to sell online within 12 months. It is an initiative to establish the Selangor as the e-commerce centre in Southeast Asia.
Selangor State Executive Councillor Datuk Teng Chang Khim said that e-commerce is the future way to do business. Beside strategic geographical location reaching China, India and Southea Asia market within hours, Selangor also has good infrastructure such as highways and international port to cope with the logistic demand of e-commerce thus placing Selangor as the global trading hub.
“(Our) strategic location enabled Malaysia to become global trading hub and we have not maximized the potential yet. We already have well established infrastructure, particular in Selangor with 17 highways, 2 international airports and the second best port in Asia (Port Klang),” he commented.
“I have been told by a foreign investor recently that he has to expand the warehouse to cater the increasing demand from e-commerce companies. Some of these companies have chosen Malaysia as their Southeast Asia distribution hub.” He added.
According to Teng, service sector contributed about 60% to Selangor’s gross domestic product (GDP) where trading service was one of the important sectors. “We wish to make Selangor an international trading hub. A number of efforts still need to be done to achieve the vision and the development of e-commerce is one of them,” he said.
Teng also revealed the recent survey by Google and Nelson that Southeast Asia is leading the world in terms of smart phone penetration. In 2014, Singapore recorded the highest smart phone penetration in the world with 85% and follow by Malaysia with 80%.
For a start, SITEC aims to help 100 SMEs to go for e-commerce by providing e-commerce training and technical support such as big data analysis and Apps. The target is expected to achieve by July next year and the training program will be conducted at SDCC in I-City, Shah Alam.
While Selangr Digital Cretive Centre (SDCC) is an incubator centre that focuses on encouraging online entrepreneurship. It will be a 11,000 sq feet co-working space for the purpose of networking, mentoring, brainstorming, spur creativity and resource sharing.
“We need to train the SMEs before they go for online business. This will cost us between RM10,000 to RM20,000 each person for the training program and it will be funded by the RM5 mil budget allocation from state government.”
“We are looking for some start up and SMEs which have existing business and they will be shortlisted from the member of chambers,” Teng added. The first objective of the council is to recruit 20 SMEs to do business online over the next three months.
Meanwhile, the Dean of Business Faculty of Unisel, Dr. Mohd Fuad Mohd Salleh, in his keynote speech, pointed out MOLPay, EDZ.com.my, lelong.my and mudah.my are the successful local e-commerce companies. He also emphasized that entrepreneur should possed five core value including creative, ability to implement, drive, focus and willing to take risk.
According to Dr.Mohd Fuad, the 7.7 trillion world halal market, 1.1 trillion world healthcare product and the 3 billion Malaysia healthcare product market provided enormous potential for the Malaysia E-Commerce industry.
The speaker, Eightdesigns Sdn Bhd managing director Norasurah Binti Abd Wahab described her humble beginning in 2008 when she started to sell cloths through blog with only RM500 as capital. Due to overwhelming order from the customer, she turned her house into a store after 10 months. Currently the gross sale of her business reach 6 digit per month.
Eightdesigns Sdn Bhd currently had 3 boutiques in Bandar Baru Bangi, Shah Alam, and Wangsa Melawati. “Now we have branches but still active in e-commerce,” Norasurah explained.
While MOLPay business development manager Azizul Othman specialized in developing, building and create new business opportunity for the e-commerce industry. He had provided solution for 200 companies as well as government sector in e-commerce. MOLPay is one of the fastest growing online payment solutions provider in the region.