sgsme.sg: SPH's new bilingual portal to help SMEs get up to speed

Singapore

SINGAPORE'S small and medium enterprise (SME) owners now have a new bilingual portal to tap for news and knowledge. Launched by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) on Tuesday, sgsme.sg curates SME-related news and features from across the group's English and Chinese publications and websites, and aims to build an online community of SMEs.

The new portal features Just Ask, a platform for Singapore's SME community to ask questions and respond to topics of relevance to their businesses. Apart from crowd-sourced answers, selected questions will also be fielded by a panel of experts from accounting, banking, legal and other backgrounds. Questions and replies may be posted in English or Chinese, and will be reviewed for relevance and accuracy.

SPH said in a press release on Monday that with this, the portal hopes to connect SME owners and entrepreneurs to specialised service providers, government agencies, trade associations and others with an interest in the SME scene.

"sgsme.sg aims to build an online community of local SMEs and the entrepreneurs behind them. The Just Ask discussion board will be a starting point for this, as business owners share knowledge, and hear from experts, service providers, policymakers and others," said sgsme.sg editor (English) Teh Shi Ning, from The Business Times. "Such a community, we hope, will empower SMEs to collaborate and pursue bolder growth ambitions, to the benefit of the wider Singapore economy."

The portal will also serve up a spread of SME-related news, features and interviews from The Business Times, The SME Magazine (distributed every two months with BT), The Straits Times, Lianhe Zaobao, zaobao.sg, Lianhe Wanbao and Shin Min Daily News.

"SMEs constantly seek information and knowledge to get ahead, but are often pressed for time," said sgsme.sg editor (Chinese) Shen Yue, from SPH's Chinese Media Group Digital.

With content relevant to local SMEs pulled into a single site, "we hope this gives SMEs easy access to policy announcements, business trends, interviews, expert commentaries, videos and other insights that will help them grow their businesses", she said.

Key sections of the site include SME Interviews, Government - for news and commentary on grants, schemes and policy changes - as well as Money, which covers SME banking, financing and money management matters. OCBC Bank is a partner for the Money section.

There is also a listing of events, seminars, workshops and conferences aimed at SMEs.

To keep up-to-date with the latest SME news, events and what's happening on Just Ask, users can sign up for sgsme.sg Digest, a free email newsletter that will be sent out twice a week.

sgsme.sg can be utilised on all web browsers on desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Users can follow sgsme.sg on Facebook (fb.com/sgsme.sg) and Twitter (@sgsmesg) for regular updates.