Caption for above pic: L-R: Desmond Lee, (CEO of HReasily Malaysia), Archie Fielding (Channel Sales Manager for AsiaPac & Japan, Enterpryze), Raymond Chui (Executive Director & Country Head of Business Banking, UOB Malaysia), Wong Kim Choong (CEO, UOB Malaysia) and Brad Gray (Head of General Business, Southeast Asia, SAP)
United Overseas Bank (Malaysia) Bhd (UOB Malaysia) and leading business software provider, SAP, just announced a tie-up to offer UOB SmartBusiness to the Bank’s small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customers. The tie-up marks the first time SAP is offering its enterprise software, SAP Business One, to Malaysian SMEs through a bank.
This tie-up with SAP represents the fourth for UOB in the region – after Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand respectively.
UOB SmartBusiness is a Google cloud-based integrated digital business solution designed to help SMEs enjoy cost-savings and improve in their operational efficiency. It specifically enables SMEs to streamline and to digitise their back office processes such as accounting, invoicing, payroll and even delivery & customer relationship management, through a secure and integrated solution.
SMEs can also link their UOB SmartBusiness account to their UOB current account, thereby enabling an automated bank reconciliation process through the matching of transactions to sales invoices or bill payments.
SMEs can choose from three options, ranging from zero cost to RM240 per month, depending on the functionalities they require and the number of employees in their organisations. The most basic package is offered complimentary for UOB Malaysia’s business banking customers. This easy-entry option is targeted at new start-ups and may entice SMEs to give the service a trial before they switch over from their existing backend office software.
As SMEs progress through different growth stages, managing a larger and more complex business poses new challenges. Thus, UOB SmartBusiness serves to provide SMEs a scalable and affordable digital solution that aims to raise productivity levels, once technology is harnessed to remove the mundane yet necessary day-to-day admin tasks from their personnel.
Brad Gray, Head of General Business for Southeast Asia, SAP, said that with SMEs making up more than 98% of business establishments in Malaysia, this community is indeed the cornerstone of the Malaysian economy. It goes to reason that once the hassle of managing complicated tedious operational tasks is taken over by enterprise software, employees can then devote more focus to core business tasks, which will drive better business outcomes.
Other collaborators on UOB SmartBusiness include human resources software provider, HReasily and mobile business software provider, Enterpryze.
To encourage more SMEs to digitise, UOB is launching the Tech My Biz competition on 11th June 2018. Through the competition, three SMEs from Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand will win a two-year subscription to UOB SmartBusiness and other digital solutions from the SAP Business One suite, on-site implementation support and employee training.
To join the competition, SMEs will have to complete an online entry form, which is available at www.UOBgroup.com/techmybiz and share the reasons why they need a digital business transformation.
