What is Digital Resilience, and Why It’s Crucial for Malaysian SMEs in 2022

If you Google for the term Digital Resilience, you’ll probably find a tonne of dated literature on cybersecurity, as well as the risks that are often associated with data and the digital space. But as we close off the year 2021 and look towards a brighter future in 2022, digital resilience has taken on a whole new meaning in light of COVID-19 — and all that the pandemic has affected over the past two years or so. 

As businesses battled against the economic effects of the pandemic, a safe haven for employees was found in the digital sphere. However, it’s important for employers and key leaders to understand that this digital transition shouldn’t be a temporary stopgap for 2021’s trials and tribulations. Instead, the process of digitalisation is a critical transition to ensure that your organisation is digitally resilient — in order to survive, and thrive through 2022, and beyond. 

As we plan for 2022, how can you ensure that your organisation is digitally resilient, while investing in the right infrastructure and innovation for the future? Here are a couple of key tips. 

If you haven’t gotten started yet, now is the time

Businesses who embarked on their digitalisation journey prior to the pandemic were naturally better prepared for the transition to the digital workspace back in 2020 (read more about Digi-X’s case, for example). But if your organisation has yet to truly undertake a process of digital transformation, it isn’t too late to jump on the bandwagon —  your business’ survival and success in 2022 likely depends on it, to an extent. 

This is particularly important, as the digital disruption of the world’s economy is unlikely to reverse — or even slow down. Modern technologies such as 5G connectivity and digital-first work arrangements are projected to trend in 2022, which makes it vital that you digitalise the end-to-end of your organisation and business as soon as possible. 

To get started, it’s a good idea to build a repository of digital initiatives and ideas — these systemic changes can be combined with any ideas that were already being trialled as nice-to-haves to enact an overall digital transformation of your organisation. Find out more about that here.

Invest in the right infrastructure   

Digital tools, systems, and an overall digital infrastructure have become must-haves for businesses in Malaysia, and around the world. Of course, the process of digitalisation is one that involves the end-to-end of an organisation, which means that back-end processes need to be integrated with organisational changes and customer-facing initiatives — ultimately resulting in an agile, future-proof entity. 

A good example of this would be Swiss multinational giants, Nestle, who had crisis management plans prepped ahead of time, with redundancies and backups built into their systems to ensure business continuity — “no matter what”, as they put it. This included the usual transition to remote work models, as well as an in-house built dashboard that consolidated public information on COVID-19 case tracking to ensure that their supply chain was as uninterrupted as possible. 

It’s usually a case of you don’t know you need it, until you do. We’ve spent some time compiling the best digital tools and services that you’ll need, so click here for a full breakdown.  

Invest in your People

Traditional roles are beginning to disappear, replaced by jobs from the digital workforce. What does this mean, exactly? Well, with modern technologies such as IoT, 5G, and automation coming to the fore during recent years, there is now an “urgent need” for Malaysians to upskill themselves with these digital-first skills, as reported by DNA. 

This development also applies to businesses in the SME segment, who arguably stand to gain the most — at least, in the short term — from upskilling their people with digital literacy and forward-thinking literacies with modern technologies. Besides the obvious benefit of ensuring the relevance of your current employees, this can also improve productivity, and even open up new revenue streams and business models for your organisation. 

In fact, a study by the University Consortium of Malaysia found that the use of digital technologies has a significant effect on SME productivity — up to 26% and 27% for social media and e-commerce adoption, respectively. This trend is set to continue with the study projecting that advanced digital technologies is projected to increase productivity for Malaysian SMEs by up to 60%.

A good way to start this process is to invest, or build a self-learning programme for your team. Whether you make this a mandatory requirement for existing employees or not is entirely up to you, but be sure to compile a repository of resources and programmes for employees to upskill, or even reskill. 

At the end of the day, the goal is to adopt a growth mindset mentality, where your organisation is always evolving and adapting.