17.09.2021 Ankara
The Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) and Visa announced the Smart SME platform for SMEs who want to realize digital transformation in their business with an online meeting attended by Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank, TOBB President M. Rifat Hisarcıklıoğlu and Visa Turkey General Manager Merve Tezel.
TOBB President M. Rifat
Hisarcıklıoğlu said at the meeting, “SMEs make up the most important part of
the enterprises operating in our country's economy. Large enterprises carry out
their production with the support of SMEs, and they can market their products
and services with the support of SMEs.”
Stating that SMEs are
among the important suppliers of the public, Hisarcıklıoğlu said, “The wheels
of the economy are actually built on SMEs. I always say that SMEs in our
country operate as the backbone of our economy, the driving force of employment
and growth, and the cornerstone of economic and social development. More than
99% of our members are SMEs. As such, SMEs are a priority on TOBB's working
agenda. We are developing policies for SMEs and working for SMEs.”
Hisarcıklıoğlu
underlined that one of the important issues affecting the private sector is the
rapid change and development of technologies. “SMEs are also the most affected
by new technologies. That's why we say, 'SMEs need to go digital now'. On the
other hand, the need for digitalization, which increases with the pandemic,
affects SMEs the most. SMEs that fail to realize their digital transformation
have difficulty continuing their commercial lives and are lagging behind in
competition. With the pandemic, digitalization has become a necessity.
Businesses with technological infrastructure ready were among the least
affected by the pandemic with the help of e-commerce and remote working systems
and digital payment channels.
As TOBB, we have
intensified our efforts on the digitalization of SMEs and started to develop
more projects. During these efforts, we have identified a significant and
fundamental deficiency in the field. There is a lack of communication and trust
between companies that offer solutions for digitalization and SMEs that want to
digitize. We have developed the Smart SME project to eliminate these problems
and create a reliable platform that will gather all the work on digitalization
under one roof. Visa sponsored this project.”
Hisarcıklıoğlu stated
that with this project, SMEs and technology suppliers are brought together on a
platform, “Technology suppliers exhibit their products and services free of
charge on this platform. SMEs can also review digital products and services
classified according to category, sector and business scale through the
platform and communicate with technology suppliers. With the digital maturity
assessment tool, SMEs will be able to learn where they are in digitalization,
where they need digital transformation and what products they need to use. In
addition, SMEs are guided on digital transformation through education, guidance
services and awareness studies. On the other hand, together with Smart SME, we
are creating a new concept for digitalization. With this new concept, we will
attract the attention of SMEs and accelerate their decision-making on digital
transformation with platform services.”
Emphasizing that they
have actually launched a digitalization campaign with smart SME, Hisarcıklıoğlu
said, “We describe this platform as a digitalization base, a digital
transformation center. Because public support for digitalization and digital
transformation is very important for the formation of an effective ecosystem.”
Reiterating that they
have launched this platform in order to accelerate the decisions of SMEs in
digital transformation, Hisarcıklıoğlu said that their ultimate goal is to
create Turkey's Digital Transformation Technology Power together with the
technology suppliers on the platform, to open technology suppliers to new
markets and to direct them to exports.
Hisarcıklıoğlu invited
all technology companies to operate as suppliers on the Smart SME platform and
to register all SMEs to benefit from these services offered.
- Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank
“The dynamics of the
age necessitate the journey to a social or economic digital transformation for
all of us,” said Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank.
Varank stated that the
working methods, business environment and business development processes are
transformed by the accelerator effect of Covid-19, and said that this
transformation should be translated into opportunity by being prepared for the
medium-term effects of the epidemic.
Varank emphasized that
this transformation can be achieved with SMEs, “Competent human resources, a
healthy functioning infrastructure, effective and strategic collaborations,
high R&D and innovation capacity. With an SME ecosystem built on these four
main pillars, Turkey will increase its competitiveness and the added value it
creates.”
Varank stated that
success at this point will not be through individual or sectoral initiatives,
and that this will be done with a correctly constructed team game.
Varank pointed out the
importance of public, private sector, universities and non-governmental
organizations acting with this synergy and stated that the Smart SME Platform,
which will support SMEs in their digitalization journeys, shows that they have
the same priority and vision as stakeholders.
Emphasizing that the
current situation of enterprises should be analyzed, digital transformation
needs should be determined and digital transformation roadmaps specific to them
should be prepared, Varank said, “In this direction, we design special
education programs at MEXT, the world's largest digital transformation and
competency development center, whether white or blue collar. In this center, we
launched the 'Internet of Industrial Objects Accelerating the Digital
Transformation of SMEs' project through TUBITAK TÜSSİDE. Our goal is to
increase the technology literacy of our SMEs and make them qualified technology
exporters.”
Varank pointed out that
there is also the financial support dimension of the business, and reported
that KOSGEB supports SMEs in all areas.
Varank stated that they
are working on a new tax incentive program in the field of digital
transformation, adding: “In order to accelerate digital transformation, we will
include the digital transformation expenditures of our SMEs as tax incentives.
Businesses that want to benefit from the program will first subject them to the
maturity evaluation process, and then we will draw up a digitalization roadmap.
You set your goals; we open the way for you. You're going to try; we will support
you. We will achieve this by consulting, working together and developing. In
the digitalization journey of our SMEs, I find the Smart SME Platform, such a
participatory, inclusive and multi-stakeholder cooperation network, valuable. I
congratulate TOBB and visa Turkey, the financier of the platform, for this
beautiful cooperation.”
- Merve Tezel: “We hope the Smart SME will be a
digitalization base”
Merve Tezel, Managing
Director of Visa Turkey, said, “The pandemic process has made the digitization
of SMEs an important need. The fact that the Smart SME platform we have
implemented today in cooperation with TOBB met with such intense interest by
service providers shows that we are doing the right thing. At Visa, we have
included the I Manage My Business trainings on the platform. I am happy to
share that we will provide the first 50 SMEs who have completed the trainings
with the digitalization and e-commerce entry package free of charge. The Visa
World tab on the platform is a guide for SMEs on the world of payments, and
they will also be able to follow the benefits and campaigns we will offer them
as Visa and our member banks here. I hope that smart SME will be a
digitalization base where SMEs can meet all their needs from a single point.”
- Smart SME Platform
Smart SME is the first
platform in our country to bring together a wide ecosystem with SMEs on the
road to digital transformation. The platform, which can be accessed from
akillikobi.org.tr address, will serve as a special digital transformation base
for SMEs with its products, services, information and trainings. SMEs visiting
smart SMEs will be able to discover their needs on the basis of categories or
sectors and meet with suppliers offering these products and services. In
addition, SMEs will be able to test themselves for digitalization, see their
level, and receive training if they want. In this way, SMEs will meet all their
needs for digitalization from A to Z on the Smart SME platform.
- The most comprehensive content on the path to
digitization
The 'Knowledge Base'
tab, which will include useful content and videos on the smart SME platform, is
intended to be Turkey's most comprehensive digital transformation information
center. In addition to this content, with the support of Visa, 'I Manage My
Business' SME trainings were included in the 'SME Academy' tab. The training
videos consisting of 7 titles and 47 modules with Boğaziçi University faculty
members and experts in the field were designed to strengthen the financial
discipline and digitalization skills of SMEs. In addition to these trainings
that will strengthen the capacities of SMEs, in the 'Visa World and Payments'
section of the platform, all the information that SMEs will need about payments
is explained in two headings: card payment and card acceptance. In addition, in
this section, SMEs can access the commercial Visa card and POS campaigns of
financial institutions specific to Smart SME.
- Digitalization level test from TUBITAK to SMEs
SMEs who sign up for
the platform are offered the opportunity to determine their current status on
digital transformation with the “Digital Transformation Maturity Assessment”
tool prepared by TUBITAK Turkey Industrial Dispatch and Administration
Institute. SMEs will be able to get support in preparing short- and medium-term
roadmaps according to the results and needs.
- Interest in the first phase was intense
Nearly 800 suppliers
offering products and services for digitalization have signed up to the
platform since the first phase of smart SME was announced in May. What these
companies offer, services such as cloud and artificial intelligence solutions,
e-export, virtual POS solutions, mobile developers, data analysis are grouped
under a total of 80 headings in 12 main categories. SMEs can access these
products and services with appropriate payment conditions by directing them to
the sites of suppliers.