Quarterly Market Outlook
Business automation and digitalisation are inevitable processes that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have to grapple with to remain relevant in the marketplace. However, SMEs are now battling on another front — surviving the economic impact of COVID-19, which has put a huge dent in their resources.
To address this issue, various initiatives to encourage SMEs to embrace automation and digitalisation were proposed in Budget 2021. By lowering the barrier to entry with grants and schemes, the government recognises the importance of digital transformation and the role it plays in our economy to protect businesses from the impact of COVID-19.
Many bricks-and-mortar businesses are not adequately equipped with the technical knowledge and resources required to plan out their digital transformation journeys. Some processes may not be familiar to them, such as establishing a data policy, reworking company standard operating procedures and employee digital upskilling.
It is important to point out that a digital transformation plan is unique to each business. Every company has its own unique challenges and requires digital solutions that address its business needs.
Thus, there is no one digital transformation plan that is applicable to all companies from all industries. Preparing a business for digital transformation requires expertise and knowledge of how technology can help automate parts of its value chain as well as how it changes the company’s business model.
With a structured digital solution framework, RHB Business Banking is able to assist SMEs in their digital transformation journeys through education and consultations. Companies will have easy access to professional guidance within our capacity as an SME business banking partner.
During the government-imposed Movement Control Order (MCO), RHB Bank played an important role in assisting SMEs cope with the surge in digital transactions. We have observed that many companies use plenty of resources on manually managing reconciliations in their accounting entries and bank account transactions on a monthly basis throughout the year.
To address this business pain point, RHB Bank has partnered with Financio Accounting to provide a solution that bridges the gap between its banking system and accounting software. The system automatically reconciles the transaction data between these two platforms, freeing up time and resources for companies to focus on growing their business.
The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the retail market landscape, driving consumer expenditure away from physical malls and stores to e-commerce and online platforms.
Retail businesses are now forced to expand their online presence in order to compete with their industry peers or even maintain their position in the marketplace. Online websites are no longer viewed as just a marketing tool but a consistent and reliable sales channel as well.
To assist SMEs in the digitalistion process, RHB Business Banking has worked with ePOS partners such as StoreHub to provide services such as food delivery and online product catalogues. Through these initiatives, we hope to streamline the digitalisation process, making the transition to online platforms as seamless as possible.
The pandemic has presented Malaysian businesses with challenges such as managing accounting entries and human resources as well as sales management. COVID-19 will also drive digital disruptions at a faster pace, increasing market competition as a result.
SMEs are now required to put on their digital thinking hat to plan out a feasible digital transformation journey to ensure that they will not lose out to the competition. As one of the industry’s most trusted SME business partners, RHB Business Banking has rolled out several solutions to help businesses in their digital transformation journeys, through the newly introduced Reflex Premium Plus.
RHB Reflex Premium Plus is an all-in-one online banking ecosystem that integrates several plug-and-play solutions that help SMEs juggle all aspects of their business efficiently according to their needs. Not only would they gain access to RHB Bank’s quality financial services, but they would also be able to conveniently manage their company accounts, point of sales, human resources and staff training with the integrated solutions offered by RHB Reflex Premium Plus.
We would like to point out that RHB Reflex Premium Plus is a specially curated package developed on top of the numerous existing solutions provided by RHB Bank aimed at assisting SMEs. We also provide the RHB Corporate Card, which captures comprehensive data on the spending patterns of the business, while offering attractive cashback rates with a charge-free period of up to 50 days from the first transaction date.
For restaurants and retail stores, RHB Merchant Terminal makes accepting payments quick and easy. With a wide range of software programmes, SMEs will be able to customise their payment processing solution to suit their business needs.
At RHB Bank, we understand that 2020 has been a challenging year for SMEs, and we believe these initiatives can give businesses the confidence to take the first step in their digital transformation journeys and embrace these digital solutions to improve their business productivity. To assist in that transition, RHB Business Banking is providing a three-month subscription waiver to SMEs that subscribe to the RHB Reflex Premium Plus programme.
Accounting Solution
Vendors: Financio
Most companies waste a lot of resources on handling manual reconciliations of their accounting entries and bank account transactions on a monthly basis. Understanding businesses’ headache, RHB has partnered with Financio Accounting to provide auto-reconciliation between the banking system and accounting solution, allowing companies to spend more time and resources on growing their business and expanding their market share.
This initiative also helps smaller SMEs to start their business more easily. With the auto-reconciliation function, they can now focus on strategies that will help them expand their customer base. SMEs can benefit from the following features:
1. A centralised account payment feature that allows customers to initiate supplier payments in the Accounting Solution, which triggers alerts and approval requests on the RHB Reflex Mobile App;
2. View the Real Time Bank Balance feature through your mobile or desktop; and
3. An automated-reconciliation feature via two-way bank feeds between the RHB Business Current Account and Accounting Solution to cut down on the manual process of cross-checking each accounting entry against bank transactions.
Human Resource Solution
Vendors: Kakitangan.com | Talenox
For companies large and small, the administrative process of managing human resources can be time-consuming and arduous. In addition to high-level tasks such as fostering a healthy work culture and maintaining employee relations, there are low-level tasks as well, such as keeping track of payroll, staff absences and local labour laws.
By partnering with service providers such as Kakitangan.com and Talenox, RHB Reflex Premium Plus offers SMEs an end-to-end solution that keeps tabs on companies’ talents, which is vital to keeping their back-end operations running smoothly. SMEs can benefit from the following features:
1. A cloud-based centralised dashboard to manage employee leaves, payroll and statutory payments in one place, anywhere, anytime;
2. Save time spent on calculating employees’ salaries and statutory payments via payroll automation; and
3. Enable easy salary disbursement by creating your file with instructions generated from the chosen HR solutions provider and plug it into RHB Reflex to disburse salary with a few clicks.
Get in touch with RHB Premier today.
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