Businesses and companies of all shapes and sizes must invest in research and development in order to improve the organization’s value-adding processes. Information technology (IT) encompasses all of the useful tools and applications that benefit both business operations and management. But how do we go about persuading small and midsize businesses (SMBs) of its importance and selling them IT infrastructure?
Given market dynamics, companies need to implement changes on the fly, and technology provides a means to achieve that goal. Businesses need to get new products to market quickly while still providing the quality that customers demand. In order to succeed, they also need to eliminate unnecessary products and take administrative steps to reduce production costs and timelines. The growth of global quality standards and business processes has also increased the need for companies to turn to technology to implement the changes needed to keep up with new requirements.
Different studies reveal that a very high percentage (more than 80 percent) of SMB executives in Latin America consider IT to be a significant driver of competitiveness. The SMB sector needs infrastructure that will allow it to compete in the knowledge economy and help it revamp its offerings and services.
Technology helps companies manage changes to their operations. Companies have reduced costs by reviewing business processes and eliminating those actions that customers do not perceive as valuable. The business impact of technology implementation is most visible in e-mail, online banking, tax payments, and purchasing, making it clear that the use of these technologies by organizations is constantly evolving together with the need for better and safer data management systems.
Mobility and the rise of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is another significant point to highlight, as the trend has grown considerably among companies. A recent study by the technology research firm Gartner estimates that by 2017, 50 percent of the world’s companies will require employees to bring their own devices to work.
Organizations must look not only at present opportunities to benefit from technology but also anticipate future changes. Any company focused solely on benefits in the here and now may overlook opportunities to implement changes that could affect its future profits or survival. Organizations that relied on strategic five-year plans in the past now find that these plans must be reviewed every 12 to 18 months. Organizations must also determine the appropriate scope of changes and manage internal culture changes to successfully integrate new technology.
The aforementioned points say a lot about the opportunities present in the SMB market; however, to successfully tap this market, we have to deploy the appropriate tools to be able to sell technology to these kinds of businesses.
Despite the existence of technologies suited to all applications or those that that can be customized to meet businesses’ needs, it is important to have a portfolio of products, solutions, and services tailor made for this market or to design something new based on each SMB’s needs. SMBs do not have the same demands as big corporations; however, by capturing them as clients, they could be equally or even more profitable.
