Singapore SMEs tap digital tools amid pandemic

AS they tackled challenges arising from the Covid-19 pandemic, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore digitalised their businesses and leveraged data at higher rates than their peers in Australia, New Zealand, North America and Canada.

This is according to a study of more than 1,000 SME owners and 1,000 SME customers across the five markets, commissioned by Xero, a cloud accounting platform that focuses on small businesses. The study titled "The Next Chapter For Small Business: How To Thrive In A Changed World" was conducted by Forrester Consulting and published on Oct 14.

About 62 per cent of the Singapore SMEs surveyed used online business solutions during the pandemic, as they sought to manage operations more efficiently and better engage with customers. This yielded a 30 per cent increase in overall cloud adoption from 2019, the largest increase among the five markets surveyed.