Technology as the lever for SMB transformation

Cloud adoption is continuing to drive transformation for SME’s. SaaS (Software as a service) adoption by SME’s in India is growing at a CAGR greater than 25% (Source NASSCOM – SME report). Concerns on security, lead pilferage, data theft, working and being in control while developing business, high upfront cost Vs. Opex and paying while growing are driving SME’s towards cloud technologies.

As I listened to Industry leaders at the NASSCOM SME Summit at Vadodra – I saw examples of exponential growth, business security and customer acquisition enabled by technology. Dr. Ajay Ranka (CEO Zydex Industries), Mr. Janak Sheth (MD - Century Pharmaceuticals) and Mr. Amit Bhatnagar (MD – Diamond Power Infrastructure) talked about investing in technology early and then driving growth from that investment. Technology enablement allows the 3 directors of Diamond Power to be in control of their company from their smartphones. To be at this level of maturity and growing revenue in orders of magnitude - clearly the transformation via technology has been profound for these 3 companies at Vadodra.   I also had the good fortune of moderating a panel discussion on Technology and Growth for SME’s at NASSCOM’s Vadodra event. I had the good fortune of meeting 3 experienced practitioners of technology from diverse backgrounds. Both the SME audience and I got to learn from the experiences of these three business leaders.

Sunil Sevak, Head of IT at L&T Power, he has been a transformative technology leader for 26 years and has kept L&T ahead of the curve in terms of technology adoption and growth - his guidance for SME's is very simple, he says " the rules of managing technology for large enterprise are the same for managing small businesses" Make sure you have clear objectives and you will see technology helping you reach your goal faster. Clear objectives will help you overcome roadblocks. Uday Rao an experienced driver of a data driven business shared that with technology you will not only be able to draw actionable insights from big and small data – but it will also help you secure your competitive advantage. With Cloud technologies you remove the risk of data loss due to hardware failure as well as data loss due to human failure. Nirav Shah, the very successful hotel and heavy equipment entrepreneur provided a very fundamental and for me, personally, a very useful framework for taking technology investment decision - he said as a business owner you should have three buckets of technology investment:   These there buckets of investment makes intuitive sense. Cloud computing, productivity software today allows you to save time and cut costs while a mobile workforce gets your team to close more business , take faster decisions, and therefore drive more revenue, and clearly delighting customers via insights, or a customised experience is what will help you retain and get a higher wallet share from the customer. This is a framework that every entrepreneur should use to take their technology purchase decisions.   There are a lot of SME's who fall prey to the herd mentality - in their plan to grow they invest in a solution that may not work for them or may not be suitable for their own business objectives. Make sure you select the technology vendor whose product meets your business needs and can you scale. Once you have taken the decision to invest in technology make sure you keep your selected vendor accountable - today the good vendors will want to become a part of your growth journey, so keep your vendors focused on your goals.   You are the customer SME's - and today you have choices for every technology item that can help you grow from Connectivity to Productivity. To do more select the vendor who understands your business growth objectives and partners with you in enabling your vision for today as well as the future. Invest in technology and grow.   

(The author is Director Office SMB & Consumer Business at Microsoft)