A forum titled ‘Digitization of SMEs: An Alternative To Survive’ was held very recently to discuss the adoption of emerging technologies and the positive impact on more streamlined business practices and processes.

The event was organized by the Ministry of Transport & Communications (MoTC) and Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) to expand the knowledge on the emerging technologies.

These technologies included fintech, blockchain, cloud computing, internet of things and business process automation in other words technologies with a potential to contribute to a decrease in costs and complexity of procedures.

It is a consensus that these technologies will benefit small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), who are the backbone of a national economy, play an important role in the economic and social development of a country and face multi-dimensional challenges, especially. These issues include attracting new customers, securing finance, increasing income, decreasing expenses and processing payments among many others.

Blockchain is a key technology for payment processing. The technology relies on user consensus to confirm transactions and data cannot be changed once sent.

It provides client and customer benefits such as speed, security and protection against identity fraud. In addition, the technology provides cost savings, streamlined practices and processes as well as simplified accounting and smart contracting. Also, it enables safer, faster and easier international payments.

Cloud services are growing rapidly in Qatar`s public and private sector. It covers the delivery of services such as servers, storage, databases, networking, software and analytics over the internet (or in other words the cloud).

In 2018, Microsoft Azure, a leading provider of cloud services, established a data centre in the State of Qatar. The initiative has accelerated the availability of cloud services in the country.

The event was part of a series organized by the MoTC to encourage SMEs and their digital transformation. The series hosted more than 3895 SMEs and 67 international, regional and national ICT service providers so far.

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