Businesses need to leverage innovative technologies to succeed in today’s competitive digital marketplace. — Photo courtesy of Epson

Businesses need to leverage innovative technologies to succeed in today’s competitive digital marketplace, experts have said.

But for Viet Nam’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) this could be a challenging prospect, they admitted.

In a survey by Japanese electronics giant Epson of 864 SMEs in six of Southeast Asia’s largest countries by GDP, 62 per cent of respondents in Viet Nam cited cost as the reason for not updating technologies.

With SMEs contributing 40 per cent of Viet Nam’s GDP, it is vital for them to be competitive in the regional and global markets. This means that business owners need to be building sustainable businesses that can adapt easily to change from an operation and environmental perspective.

SMEs are at the heart of the nation’s economy, employing 51 per cent of the workforce and accounting for 98 per cent of all enterprises, and as such need to be empowered with the right tools to participate successfully in the emerging digital economy, the report said.

Companies are also becoming increasingly aware of the need to act sustainably since this can positively impact company efficiency, brand value and reputation, growth, and stakeholder relations.

From an operations perspective, SMEs can benefit from the adoption of sustainable business practices through the reduction of operating costs by selecting hardware that supports business objectives and streamlines energy use.

Streamlining energy usage and reducing SMEs’ carbon footprint is an ideal way to lower operating costs in the long run and be better to the environment.

For example, retailers can now deploy point-of-sale (POS) printers that connect easily with other technologies and make printing reliable and easy to use for business owners.

Eighty one per cent of Vietnamese respondents saw this connectivity as a key benefit.

Offices can also manage printing costs more sustainably with environment-friendly heat-free printers, and on-demand colour label printers not only save costs but also reduce wastage – a boon for SME food manufacturers chasing product sales.

However, fostering digital transformation requires more than the adoption of new technologies. Today this means creating environments where businesses can leverage innovation to deliver meaningful change that drives positive business outcomes.

Epson believes that sustainability can be addressed through investment in new technologies that also have a reduced environmental impact.

The company’s environmental vision for 2050 sets out a goal to provide products and services that contribute to the environment by making efficient use of energy and resources and reducing the environmental impacts of production processes and customers’ business processes. — VNS