We are pleased to share the findings of our survey on SMEs Sustainability and Survival During MCO, which was conducted online for the period 27 – 30 April 2020.
The objective of the Survey is to gather feedback on the Stimulus Package for SMEs, the measures taken by the SMEs to keep their business survive, and their plans for post MCO recovery.
We had 4280 SMEs participated in the survey throughout Malaysia. We would like to express our appreciation to the respondents for sharing your views.

Here are the key findings for your reference:
• A sharp drop in revenue: 56.56% of the firms reported zero revenue during MCO.
• The most badly hit firms are Micro Firms and the most badly hit sectors are Business & Professional Service and Retail & Other Services.
• 61.26% of the firms would implement pay cut; 29.65% of the firms would ask employees to take unpaid leave.
• 48.34% of the firms applied for Special Relief Facilities (SRF). Of this, 71% is Small firms, and 47% is from Business & Professional Service. The approval rate is extremely low for Micro firms (3.75%) and Small firms (13.36%); while much higher for Medium firms (23.53%) and Large firms (21.05%).
• In terms of approval amount for SRF as applied for, it is skewed towards to Medium and Large firms: 65% of Medium firms and 50% of Large firms received approval for the amount they applied for. The percentage for Micro firms is as low as 36.84% and for Small firms is 47.18%.
• 68.89% of the total application was in process. The time frame needed for SRF application processing is rather long: 43% of the applications would take at least 4 weeks to be processed.
• For Micro and Small firms that did not apply for SRF, they sought for financing mainly from Internal Funding (38% for Micro firms and 52% for Small firms) and Loans from Friends (31% for Micro firms and 17% for Small firms).
• For Medium and Large firms that did not apply for SRF, they sought for financing mainly from Internal Funding (as high as 57% for Medium firms and 73% for Large firms) and Other Business Loans (18% for Medium firms and 15% for Large firms).
• 3039 firms or 71% of total respondents applied for WSP and/or EIS. Among those firms applied for WSO and/or EIS, 73% is Micro firms.
• The ratio for Micro firms applying for WSP and/or EIS is as low as 48.16%, and for Small firms is as high as 83.38%. This may suggest that a large proportion of Micro firms is not registered with SOCSO.
• More than half of the total respondents claim that their cash flow would flow dry up by May 2020, i.e. 69% of the Micro firms, 59% of the Small firms, 45% of the Medium firms, and 40% of the Large firms.
• In regard to the strategies to survive post-MCO, the top three choices are Restructuring, Downsize, and Go-Digital/E-commerce.

We hope that the findings would be useful to policy makers, financial institutions, SMEs, research institutions, and other parties that work for improving SMEs betterment. Kindly log in or sign up as a Portal Member to download the Survey Report here.