About
A community-based business-to-business portal to enable SMEs to get more sales and reduce daily operating costs
Innovation presentation
We studied what SME businesses and business owners in Malaysia needed the most using quantitative statistics from Google Analytics and Google Trend, to find out the most searched keywords with regard to their needs. We further validated this with qualitative insights gleaned from our existing customers’ interviews. We discovered the 5 key issues that were most relevant to SMEs today:
1. Acquiring new customers
2. Transforming their business model to operate digitally
3. Managing operating cost
4. Making their business more sustainable
5. Getting financial support to improve cash flow
We focused on helping our customers and the SME community in Malaysia find solution providers or partners that provide the relevant solutions to address the five issues. As of end-September 2022, we had over 200 partners offering solutions from digital marketing to solar panel installation.
Additionally, we have also collaborated with large organisations as ecosystem partners to offer a comprehensive range of solutions for SMEs and expand our reach. Our key partners in this area include, among others, Celcom, Bursa Malaysia, Malaysian Green Technology and Climate Change Corporation (MGTC) and United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).
By working together with our partners, we strive to help our customers become more competitive and successful both locally and globally.
Uniqueness of the project
The BizSmart® Solution portal is unique as it is able to attract and match two groups of businesses - the first being SMEs looking to find solutions and second, business partners that are keen to provide solutions that are relevant to these SMEs.
When the two groups were brought together, we created a captive ecosystem that enabled SMEs to procure solutions at discounted rates to improve their business operations as well as become our business partners to acquire new customers from our pool of SMEs.
The Bank is then able to insert itself within these interactions by helping to finance the procurement of some of these solutions, particularly for larger-scale solutions such as robotic automation, solar installation and water treatment solutions.
The fact that all these discounted solutions are provided free of charge to customers of the Bank can further boost customer retention and may even come into play when customers compare similar facilities from the other banks.
