Abstract
Aim: The current paper looks into how Asian SMEs responded to digitalisation and the COVID-19 epidemic.
Method: The following research utilised a primary quantitative methodology to collect important data from a survey of 100 respondents who were both managers or staff members of SMEs.
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The eruption of the coronavirus pandemic occurred in 2019 that has majorly affected the economies nationally and globally (Allam, Dey, and Jones, 2020). It has strictly impacted various organisations as they faced varying amounts of losses in the process (Sonobe et al., 2021). In addition, it is recognised that enterprises are facing numerous dilemmas which involve a decline in the consumer demand levels as well as other businesses, which is causing disturbances in the supply chain, the cancellation of the export orders, lack of raw materials utilised in the production and interruptions in transportation. Furthermore, it has been found that the spread of Covid’19 has not only affected Asia’s economy but the entire world and is still in the phase of experiencing the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak (Shinozaki and Rao, 2021). Furthermore, it is argued that the key victims of the eruption are the small, medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as they lack in obtaining and possessing enough resources in terms of financial and managerial in comparison with the substantial firms. These firms will remain affected as they are bound and reliant on routine transactions with a restricted customer pool (Guo et al., 2020). Thus, they are suffering from declining stock levels that lack in meeting the demand levels, whereas numerous firms find it hard to manage and operate smoothly in the foreseeable future.
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