It has been a very tough year for Malaysian businesses. The unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic has caused many entrepreneurs to rethink their business strategy to adapt to the constantly changing business environment just to stay afloat. 

As the global battle against Covid-19 continues, global technology firm Alibaba Group has risen to the occasion to help local SMEs to accelerate their recovery during the crucial post-pandemic phase. Since the launch of its first international eWTP hub in Kuala Lumpur, Alibaba has assisted many Malaysian SMEs to find new markets overseas via its various e-commerce platforms, introduced the second edition of Malaysia Week to help broadened the reach of Malaysian products to Chinese consumers, supported the local development of digital payment through Ant Financial, and hosted the “Go Export 2020: Alibaba.com Malaysia Online Seller Summit” to empower Malaysian businesses to emerge post-Covid.

As part of Alibaba’s continued commitment to empowering businesses around the world, including those in Malaysia, the company has helped local entrepreneurs to meet the rapidly evolving digital economy through its various platforms. In recent years, Alibaba has introduced the Alibaba Business Operating System (ABOS), which provides entrepreneurs with all the tools available in Alibaba’s ecosystem to embed innovation in their business operation. ABOS allows users to accelerate their digital transformation through a customised, wide-ranging service package. It also offers access to e-commerce gateways such as Alibaba.com and Tmall marketplace to provide a platform for Malaysian businesses to scale their operations, increase sales and gain exposure in the global market.

Happy Grass, a third-generation food manufacturer based in Johor, started adopting e-commerce on Alibaba.com three years ago. The annual revenue from the e-commerce platform for the first two years was around RM500,000, and more than doubled from the third year onwards, thanks to additional market penetration into Canada, New Zealand, the US and Australia.  

Another company, Tai Chen Enterprise — which is involved in timber raw materials — has leveraged on the e-commerce platform as well. Its business, which was domestically reliant, has grow tremendously with 90% derived from exports. Revenue from the digital platform has increased from an annual averages of RM4 million to RM5 million to RM15 million.

Apart from ABOS, Alibaba is also running programmes under its education arm,  Alibaba Business School (ABS). Zhang Yu, vice-president of the Alibaba Group, says ABS’s Alibaba Netpreneur Training (ANT) programme aims to address various challenges facing Malaysian entrepreneurs — both traditional businesses and digital ventures — and help convert these challenges into opportunities to propel their business further. 

One such entrepreneur who has successfully turned to digital solutions during this challenging time is Sabari, who owns a small and medium enterprise (SME). Inspired by the Bainiu Village (a model e-commerce village in China), Sabari launched an online marketplace called Fregee for farmers, consumers and retailers in Malaysia. Together with the Fregee team, he has been assisting farmers in marketing their produce by going digital since May last year.

“When the Movement Control Order (MCO) was announced, farmers struggled to sell their produce and were unable to assess the demand, which essentially led to much wastage. At the same time, Lazada introduced the fresh produce category,” says Zhang.

Sabari capitalised on this development.

“He worked with Lazada to get Cameron Highlands’ farmers on the platform. To avoid wastage, Fregee provided a 14-day forecast to the farmers using their data and analytics capability and helped them to sell directly to both consumers and retailers.” 

Besides collaborating with Touch ‘n Go to facilitate payment and working with other Alibaba Netpreneurs, Sabari is also engaging with eFounders Fellows (the eFounders Fellowship is a digital entrepreneur community co-organised by the Alibaba Business School and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) to further expand Fregee’s footprint beyond Cameron Highlands and the Klang Valley, says Zhang.

Meanwhile, Malaysian insurtech start-up PolicyStreet has the key advantage of being agile. When the pandemic hit Malaysia, PolicyStreet moved quickly to offer food delivery riders, SMEs and the community at large with insurance protection against Covid-19, says Zhang.

“Furthermore, to protect the community at large, the team established a Covid-19 insurance helpline dedicated to Malaysians. By partnering with Malaysia Digital Economy Corp (MDEC), PolicyStreet offered guaranteed savings to help SMEs with their insurance renewal. The platform also enabled Malaysians to renew their car insurance from the comfort of their home,” she adds.

PolicyStreet co-founders Wilson Beh and Winnie Chua, who are also Alibaba Netpreneurs, raised RM7.85 million from equity crowdfunding and venture capitalists during the MCO. It was the most significant amount raised on a Malaysian crowdfunding platform, a testament to the company’s success.

There are also many inspiring stories of Malaysian businesses transforming their operations to adapt to the changing needs during the pandemic, says Zhang. For one, when the country faced a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other critical medical equipment, Alibaba Netpreneur and owner of MS. READ, Kristy Yong, teamed up with fellow netpreneur and founder of the Rumah Kita platform, Daniel, to develop a solution. They transformed a number of the production lines in MS. READ’s factory to produce gowns and boots for frontliners.

Meanwhile, Alibaba Netpreneur and founder of Dot2Dot Print, KC Ooi, transformed his printing and packing business to offer new products such as face shields. “Capitalising on the enterprise messaging app DingTalk, Ooi’s team was able to work from home and successfully launched new products amidst the outbreak. Jack Ma’s advice on how to adapt to the crisis also helped Ooi to restructure his team to adjust to the new normal,” says Zhang.

Alibaba Business School is the education arm of Alibaba Group. In January 2017, it announced the ANT programme to enable Malaysian entrepreneurs and those who operate businesses in Malaysia to embrace digital innovations to transform their businesses and the country’s economy. Malaysia is the first Asian country outside of China to initiate the ANT programme. It did it with the support of MDEC, Malaysia External Trade Development Corp and SME Corp. 

Complementing the Electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) initiatives in Malaysia, the training programme aims to 

enable Malaysian entrepreneurs and business leaders to explore and harness digital innovations and technologies to transform their businesses and the country’s economy. As at June last year, 155 participants had graduated from the programme.

The programme entails country-specific training for both traditional and digital entrepreneurs and business leaders in all industries, leadership training and workshops led by business leaders and founders to enable entrepreneurs to have a mindset for digital transformation, and  encourageinclusion in the global community of digital pioneers to encourage collaboration and share inspiration, among others. 

“Alibaba Global Initiative’s mission is to share the positive impact of the new business paradigm in promoting inclusive development and to inspire and empower entrepreneurs, youth and women. We have stayed true to our mission and we continue supporting the entrepreneurial community during this crisis,” says Zhang. 

ANT is a 10-day programme hosted at Alibaba’s campus in Hangzhou. With the pandemic in place, how will the training be done? “We have been monitoring the magnitude and development of the outbreak from very early on. We started the internal discussion on the potential impact of this epidemic on our entrepreneur community and the value and support we can provide them as well as the potential changes of the training focus and format at the end of January, when the lockdown had just started in China. 

“We deployed a special online learning series in early February after Chinese New Year. It has been focusing on the digital actions and learnings from the Alibaba ecosystem and China to give our entrepreneurs the foresight and warning to prepare their business and community for the potential impact. We have been sharing these contents through articles and livestreaming on a weekly basis,” says Zhang. 

Deep dive sessions for its entrepreneurs to interact directly with Alibaba’s experts on specific topics have also been organised, he adds. “As the pandemic escalated, we also started organising virtual meetings within the community and between our entrepreneur community — as well as other mission-driven entrepreneur/leader communities to facilitate local connection and form a joint effort in the area of spread control, community support and SME recovery,” says Zhang. 

Summing up the key responses and learnings from the Alibaba ecosystem and its entrepreneur community, a handbook entitled Digital Action for Entrepreneurs in the Age of Covid-19: Learnings from Alibaba was also released. It shares insights into helping more businesses to rise above the coronavirus outbreak through digital technologies and innovations.

“Moving forward, we will continue adapting our training content and format to support our entrepreneur community and enable the acceleration of the digital transformation,” says Zhang.