During the Covid-19 outbreak, digitalisation emerged as a key tool for enabling businesses to continue operating during the circuit breaker, and using the downtime to upgrade their processes for the future.
Post-Covid 19, digitalisation will help businesses modernise and improve their competitiveness and productivity, ultimately helping them emerge stronger.
Government Support For F&B And Retail Companies To Adopt Digital Solutions
To help companies in their push for digitalisation, the government has stepped in with various schemes and grants. This may be to encourage companies to adopt digital solution as well as offset the capital-intensive nature of implementing digital solutions.
Companies in the F&B and retail were particularly affected during the circuit breaker earlier in the year. The need to digitalise was more immediate to remain in business and to adhere to safe distancing requirements. To this end, several government schemes were targeted at these two sectors.
One of the schemes – the Digital Resilience Bonus (DRB) – will provide a bonus payout of up to $10,000 to food services and retail companies that have adopted eligible digital solutions. As a business owner, you will be glad to know that the DRB is given in addition to the digitalisation assistance provided under the SMEs Go Digital programme.
For now, the Digital Resilience Bonus is offered to the Food Service and Retail sectors. In June 2020, Communications and Information Minister S. Iswaran explained that: “The focus through the Digital Resilience Bonus has been on F&B and retail because many of these businesses are local, and these sectors tend to be where we have a high concentration of SMEs.“
Also targeted at the F&B and retail sectors are the Food Delivery Booster Package and E-Commerce Booster Package respectively. There are also a host of other assistance schemes and grants to help F&B and retail companies, as well as companies in other sectors, and you can easily navigate these through the government’s GoBusiness Gov Assist website.
How To Receive The $10,000 Digital Resilience Bonus?
In short: Companies that have “PayNow Corporate, e-invoicing, and use pre-defined categories of digital solutions for Business Processes, Digital Presence and Data Mining and Analytics can receive bonus payouts of up to $10,000”.
In more details, here’s how your company can get the Digital Resilience Bonus payouts:
Step 1:
Sign up for PayNow Corporate and Nationwide e-invoicing Network. In addition, companies will also receive an e-invoicing grant of $200 grant for if they register on the Nationwide e-Invoicing Network by 31 December 2020.
Step 2:
Take up digital solutions that qualify for the Digital Resilience Bonus.
They differ for F&B and e-commerce companies.
| F&B | Retail | |
| Base | PayNow Corporate and Nationwide e-invoicing Network | PayNow Corporate and Nationwide e-invoicing Network |
| Category 1 ($2,500) | All 3 solutions: Accounting, HR/Payroll and Digital Ordering (Dine-in/Takeaway) | All 3 solutions: Accounting, HR/Payroll and Inventory Management |
| Category 2 ($2,500) | Online Food Delivery (via food delivery platforms or own online shopfront or e-Procurement | e-Commerce |
| Category 3 ($5,000) | Data mining & analytics | Data mining & analytics |
Step 3:
There is no need to register for the grant as your solution provider in the individual categories will send your UEN and usage information to the IMDA.
Step 5:
You will receive your bonus via PayNow Corporate.
Read Also: What Is PayNow For Business, And 4 Reasons Why Companies Should Adopt It
If you have not taken up any solution under the categories listed for the DRB, you can contact a bank listed on this webpage: www.imda.gov.sg/DRBonus . The bank, such as OCBC, will help you:
– Set up a PayNow Corporate account
– Register your business on the Peppol e-invoicing network
– Start you on a suite of solutions to improve your business productivity while being eligible for DRB payouts.
Separately, you may have also received the Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) under the “SMEs Go Digital” programme.
Read Also: Guide To Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG) And PSG SkillsFuture Training Subsidy (SFTS)
The DRB is an additional incentive for digitalisation during this Covid-19 outbreak. It is a one-time cash payout to enterprises that meet the qualifying criteria. Enterprises can receive the DRB as long as the solutions adopted fall under the respective categories and are listed on this webpage: www.imda.gov.sg/DRBonus .
For more information, you can view the Digital Resilience Bonus e-brochure or sign up for an IMDA webinar to learn about “Qualifying For All 3 Categories Of The Digital Resilience Bonus” on 1 October 2020.
You can also view the list of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on the Digital Resilience Bonus.
Other Government Support For Digitalisation
As mentioned, besides the DRB, there are other support for digitalisation. Some of them include:
Food Delivery Booster Package
Get supported as a Food Services enterprise in managing your food delivery costs, from 7 April to 30 June 2020. From 13 April to 31 December 2020, receive additional support to equip yourself with the tools and capabilities to optimise online delivery sales and build a strong digital presence.
E-Commerce Booster Package
For Retail enterprises, apply by 30 September 2020 to receive up to 90% funding support to set up your business online so that you can start selling your products on e-commerce platforms to local and overseas markets.
Start Digital Pack
Adopt any 2 foundational and easy-to-deploy solutions at no cost for 6 months with a minimum 18-month contract period.
Grow Digital
Participate in Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) e-commerce platforms to sell overseas without a need for physical presence there.
Digital Solutions for Safe Reopening
Check out these useful resources under the Directory of Digital Solutions which is specially curated to help you use digital solutions to implement safe management measures for safe reopening.
If you have been wondering about digitalising your business, there is no better time and push to do so now. By taking up these incentives brought on by Covid-19, it is one way of turning around your business during this pandemic.
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