KUALA LUMPUR: Starting her trade from humble beginnings as a flea market shoe seller, Christina Ng, chief executive officer of Christy Ng Sdn Bhd, made her debut on the international scene by adopting a digital transformation strategy and shifting to an e-commerce platform.
Christina’s entrepreneurial journey began at the tender age of nine when she started selling straw flowers made by her mother at the Kelana Jaya LRT station in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
At the age of 15, she sold ice-cream to help her family earn more money.
Today, Christina is one of the most sought-after shoe designers in the country via her own firm Christy Ng, a multi-channel woman footwear and handbag company with retail stores in key locations across the Klang Valley.
The brand also owns an e-commerce site which ships to customers from over 70 different countries across the world.
Her story was featured in a Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) article posted on its website.
However, just like many other small and medium enterprises (SMEs), Christina’s business was impacted by the challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
She applied and was awarded the #SMART Automation Grant (SAG) matching grant, an initiative under the government’s National Economic Recovery Plan (Penjana) for SMEs and mid-tier companies in the services sector to automate their business processes and ease their financial strains as a result of the pandemic.
The grant which was made through MDEC empowered traditional and non-technology activity-related businesses to embrace new technology and move towards digitalisation.
Christina said Penjana funding helped to support businesses like hers to innovate and automate swiftly, enabling them to participate in the digital economy while responding to the societal changes.
“The support was necessary. Through the SAG initiative, we managed to migrate to a more consolidated system that helps us to reduce our work hours by improving the efficiency of our order management and processing system, while providing a better shopping experience for our customers,” she said.
Meanwhile, MDEC said just like Christy Ng, 65 other SMEs and mid-tier companies have been awarded the SAG matching grant by the government through the agency.
“SMEs are the backbone of our economy. The Malaysian economy consists of almost 99 per cent of SMEs, contributing 38.9 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.
“I’m happy to note that Christy Ng and other SMEs as well as mid-tier businesses have benefitted from this matching grant, enabling them to contribute to Malaysia’s economy.
“We look forward to continuously supporting Malaysian companies on their business endeavours, ensuring that they are provided with the right resources, platforms, and financial assistance needed to aid their business automation and expansion,” said MDEC chief executive officer Surina Shukri. MDEC chairman Datuk Dr Rais Hussin Mohamed Ariff meanwhile said to achieve MDEC’s vision of enabling a people-first society, the agency continued to set the foundation for Malaysians to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, further supporting the nation’s efforts to realise Malaysia 5.0 vision, leading to shared prosperity for all. – Bernama
