Cloud for SMBs: Building a futuristic enterprise

BANGALORE, INDIA: As emerging and mid-market companies around the globe look to grow and develop innovative strategies to outperform competition, they actively seek opportunities to transform from a people-driven organization to a process-centric market leader.

As these businesses and Entrepreneurs evolve, they continually look at ways to leverage standardized and automated Business Processes, and Best in Class Technologies with Zero capital outlay in technology, process or people.

With the fast paced adoption of cloud taking place we are seeing over 5,000 large enterprises and over 10 million small and medium business (SMBs) ready to consume IT, the $30 Bn+ domestic IT market is expected to grow between 15-18 percent in 2013 as per Zinnov report.

A fast maturing cloud market with many new entrants has grown in the region at $535 million in 2011 with over 70 percent growth registered in 2012 and almost 50 per cent growth forecasted for the next 3 years, (as per IDC report on India Cloud Market Overview, 2011-2016).

Business priorities have changed in the recent economic times and are influencing the way cloud is being looked upon as a strategic tool to grow faster. Entrepreneurs and businesses are looking at focusing more on their Core Business Functions and imperatives, whatever drives their competitive edge in the market.

They seek to outsource all their critical Non-Core business functions such as Finance, Accounts, HR, Legal, and IT to providers that can offer better quality, faster turnarounds and elastic scale up or down charge models.

As we look at the worldwide trend in cloud adoption, fast growing SMEs in developed and developing countries will be the first to move their business critical applications and business processes to the cloud.

These SMEs are more open to significant transformational changes than their larger counterparts, as typically these critical Non-Core business functions are challenging to manage due to rapid growth, and also challenges associated with Change Management related to technology, process and people.  

While still the adoption of cloud by SMEs is limited to basic services, mainly due to unavailability of end-to-end vertically integrated stack of services, we are now witnessing a rise in demand by such emerging companies. Typically the second generation leadership is willing to adopt new disruptive technologies and business management services.

Therefore the potential is huge for SMEs to scale up fast by adopting unique solutions which will transform them into a process-centric organization and over time a market leader. 

The adoption of cloud-based productivity suites among emerging and mid-sized companies is directly dependent on bringing down the TCO and increasing ease of use. The number of cloud services is expected to double over the next five years, and the number of small business using at least one cloud service will triple during that same period.

The most commonly used cloud services by SMEs are email, instant messaging, and backup, but with the rising competition in the industries it has become all the more important for entrepreneurs to have a well-established cloud partner for their business, right in place from the beginning. 

There is a rising need to bridge this gap that can fill the time, mobility benefit and cost for enterprises. Now we are witnessing new forms of cloud platforms which are specifically focused on SMEs such as the Business Function as a Service (BFaaS©), which gives users on demand, pay as you go service delivery experience that businesses can leverage to outsource end-to-end and all their critical but non-core business functions such as F&A, HR, Legal and IT.

The key items for consideration by both IT and business decision makers to opt for such services framework include:

• Personal attention to manage not required
• No upfront capital outlays
• Control and Compliance
• No vendor lock-ins
• Flexibility & Rapid implementation
• Mobility of workforce

Services like BFaaS© are bringing a fundamental shift from the traditional BPO time, material and resource management type engagement to an objective outcome and result oriented model.

The famous saying "What worked for you yesterday may not work tomorrow" is most apt in today's cloud scenario. It is time that the emerging and mid-sized companies begin to adopt the change for a positive orientation and Thinks big, Start small and Scale up fast.

(The author is CEO & Co-founder of Emkor Solutions Limited)

(The views expressed in this article are that of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of CIOL)