Startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Qatar stand to gain from the series of workshops being organised by the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) that would enable them to develop their business further through digital technology.
The ‘Digital Transformation of SMEs’ programme under the auspices of the MoTC is helping startups and SMEs in Qatar gain access to web presence, e-commerce, and cloud solutions through regular training sessions.
“We are planning to hold close to a hundred sessions this year and we are trying to reach out to around 5,000 SMEs by 2019,” said Indica Amarasinghe, project team member at the MoTC.
“We are doing multiple sessions for the entire week. Every month, the MoTC will organise seven to eight sessions. Many sessions will be happening and we already have 20 technology partners such as startups and mature companies working with the MoTC for this initiative,” he told Gulf Times yesterday on the sidelines of the workshop.
Yesterday’s session, the 16th workshop since the MoTC kicked-off the initiative in November 2017, was conducted by Mufeed Ahmed, co-founder of Qubicle Innovations, a Qatari startup that was incubated at the Digital Incubation Centre in 2014.
Qubicle is among the 20 technology service providers that are specialising web presence, e-commerce, and cloud solutions, according to Amarasinghe.
He said small businesses in Qatar are facing a number of challenges that prevent them from maximising digital technology to promote their products and develop their companies. 
According to the Qatar ICT Landscape Report 2015, only 39% of businesses in Qatar are web-enabled and only 12% are transacting businesses through e-commerce, while only 3% are using cloud technology.
“SMEs don’t adapt to technology due to a number of reasons: the lack of awareness, cost, and not knowing the right people or agencies to work with. Through the programme, what we are trying to do is to eradicate those barriers. 
“And these barriers are not common to Qatar only but also in many businesses across the world. We are connecting SMEs to service providers and we are educating them with the value of the technologies, as well as getting them good pricing through our partners,” Amarasinghe said.
He said by encouraging SMEs to maximise the use of technology, they can develop their companies, reach more customers, reduce operating costs, and do cross-border trading through e-commerce, and tap regional and global markets.