Technology for SMBs - CIOL Opinion

Technology for SMBs

Small and medium businesses can improve their performance exponentially with a little help from technology. All they need is some encouragement from the government

R Sivakumar

Thursday, August 27, 2009

BANGALORE, INDIA: They may not be household names across the world, but small and medium businesses form as much of the core of an economy as large enterprises do. Across the world, it is these businesses that make up the larger business landscape of a country, reflecting their true economic strength. If in Africa SMBs form more than 90 per cent of businesses; in East and South Asia (except Japan), they provide 93 per cent of industrial output and more than 87 per cent of the workforce.

In India, according to the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, SMBs contribute between 8-9 per cent to the GDP and 34 per cent to the total exports of the country. But the real reason why SMBs are more critical is that they have a wider socio-economic impact. On the one hand, they push industrial growth and provide employment, and on the other, they effect social transformation and encourage economic self-reliance at the grassroots.

Providing a Leg up

An SMB, however, needs every help it can get to sustain and grow, and to continue to effect this socio-economic transformation. With technology by its side, an SMB can multiply its potential and spread its impact wider, while growing its profits. The most critical help that ICT gives an SMB is the way to better manage its limited resources, people, and processes so that even with the limitations of size, the SMB can use the same resources to perform exponentially better than it otherwise does.

With the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), an SMB can get several benefits. Some of these include:

Increased Productivity: The use of ICT can help an SMB automate everyday tasks, including the management of customer orders, invoicing, tracking production, tracking delivery, and managing product, and customer information. Automating everyday tasks doesnt just improve efficiency, it also helps contain costs.

Increased Customer Satisfaction: With the use of a website, an SMB can attract customers from all over the world. Existing customers can be serviced better with the use of better and more efficient sales and marketing tools; targeted selling due to better management of customer information and preferences. Better communication with customers removes order and delivery errors, and gathers and incorporates customer feedback.

Increased Competitiveness: Information is power and access to information gives an SMB the edge over its competitors. Market intelligence, global trends, as well as analysis of its own performance can help an SMB stay ahead of the curve.

Increased Growth: Reaching out to potential customers, not just locally, but globally over the Internet, can help an SMB expand its business considerably. Access to the Internet can also help the SMB sell its products and services online, providing a customer base that wouldnt have been possible otherwise.

Step-by-Step

While technology for business has been around for a while, SMBs have been reluctant in their overture towards it because it earlier came at a price that SMBs could not afford, and often with features that the SMBs did not need. All that has changed. Today, there are ICT tools designed and priced specifically for SMBs. Starting with a very small investment and leading up to the entire business model developed around ICT, there is something for every SMB to consider.

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(The author is managing director, sales and marketing, Intel, South Asia)

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