George Lee

George Lee is the founder and CEO of Innov8tif – an ISO 27001:2013 certified AI company helping businesses to widen sales funnel, speed-up processes without paper and prevent frauds. Under George’s leadership, Innov8tif has progressed from a self-funded enterprise software technology start-up, into a sustainable business which expended its footprint from home ground in Kuala Lumpur to Indonesia, Singapore and across Southeast Asia. Prior to founding Innov8tif, George was the Sales Director of a public-listed software company which specialised in enterprise collaboration solution. From 2009 to 2011, George co-founded Joget Workflow project, and contributed to the inception of a US-incorporated commercial open-source software business. As the Chief of Innov8tif, George does not just steer the ship in the business strategy aspect, but always proven an effective communicator when it comes to people and stakeholder management.

AllSessions

Day 1

October 20, 2021

11:30 am

Concurrent Session B: “Are We There Yet? Future-Proofing Malaysian SMEs”

YBhg. Datuk Dr Hamzah Kassim Mahadhir Aziz Adam Yee Rizal Nainy George Lee

20 October

Time: 11:30 am - 12:30 pm

Location:

Speaker: YBhg. Datuk Dr Hamzah Kassim Mahadhir Aziz Adam Yee Rizal Nainy George Lee

In Malaysia, 98.5% of business establishments are small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that contribute almost 40% to the country’s GDP and employ more than 7 million workers*. According to the World Bank, Malaysia’s SMEs have been underperforming in comparison to peer countries in terms of output and productivity, even before the pandemic. Most notably, digital adoption among SMEs lag far behind with only one in three businesses implementing digital transformation strategies. The pandemic not only adversely impacted SMEs, it also highlighted the lack of readiness of many SMEs, especially micro-businesses, to shift to an online environment.

How can SMEs scale up their digitisation efforts, and what role can ministries and agencies like MITI, MEDAC, MDeC, and SME Corp play to future-proof the backbone of our economy, the SMEs? This session will explore this and other issues affecting the digitalisation efforts of SMEs with a view towards ensuring higher resilience against future shocks.
*Department of Statistics Malaysia