Using IT to Do More with Less

The SMB Forum was rounded off by hour-long panel discussions across all five cities. They provided a unique opportunity to the IT and business heads to discuss under one roof, business challenges faced by their local industry and technologies available to arrest them. The participation from audience was intense, and as people seldom get such opportunities to come together and interact in a candid manner, they made the most of it. It's interesting to note that while the core issues remain the same, the local flavor leads to variations in intensity or scale. Key issues discussed this time are as

follows:

Lack of IT manpower and skillsets

One major constraint that any SMB faces is lack of IT manpower and knowhow. When they go out to choose an IT solution for their business needs, lack of IT awareness handicaps them. This is further accentuated as most small businesses don't attract great IT talent pool. The officials who are entrusted with the job of selection of an IT solution are less aware about its implications once implemented. And they get surrounded by innumerable vendors, and it becomes challenging to take the correct decision.

It would be long before small businesses see good IT manpower coming in. But does that mean that SMBs would remain less informed and challenged? It was voiced that the solution to this problem was to develop neutral region-specific organizations which understand IT problems faced by industries in that region and provides unbiased IT guidance to SMBs. This would provide the much needed push to SMBs who are willing to adopt IT, but don't know whom to ask.

Getting the best within low budgets

Most SMBs have a shoe-string budget to purchase IT solutions that best fit their business needs. For instance, for selecting the right ERP, SMBs need to focus on certain issues like looking for an ERP solution that is best fit for their business needs, economical, easily upgradable and most important, provides long-term support. Equally important is selecting the right team with the best people in it, developing effective and open communication systems, deciding the level of customization, training end users and keeping employees morale and motivation high.

Saas Gaining Popularity

It was felt that the SaaS model was one of the best options for SMBs as it offered them the benefit of using some of the best applications for improving operational efficiency on a 'pay as you use' model. This model is also flexible and would easily allow SMBs to scale up or scale down based on needs.

One of the panelists in Pune, Neeraj Shah, MD, Silver Bright shared his experience on the issue. Their company, which is into manufacturing engineering goods, faced a challenge of catering to more than 400+ growing customers, had too much data to analyze, and faced issues in training customer relation managers and retaining them. On an average completing a sales call used to take 15 minutes per customer. After implementing a CRM solution using Cloud Computing technologies, they were able to convert a sales call in less than 3 minutes. Also they were saved from investing in hardware and software licenses. All they needed was a broadband connection and the ability to adapt and learn.

Open Source for SMBs?

The audience queried about the feasibility of using open source solutions as a cheaper option for improving operational efficiency. However, it was felt that though Open Source is a cost-effective option, but there could be problems when in terms of support. Considering that SMBs have difficulty in getting talented IT manpower, treading into Open Source solutions for improving operational efficiency must be done with a lot of care as there is a lot of sensitive business information at stake.

Getting ERP customized

As far as ERP solutions are concerned, each business has its own needs and there can be no one solution that fits all. An interesting point raised by the panel was that SMBs in a particular region can form a group and enlist their expectations from an ERP solution and then approach an ERP vendor. There are quite a few vendors who provide customized solutions for such groups having similar needs.

An example was give by Dharmendra Singh, panelist, about a reselling business, which had huge transactions to manage and was doing it on a popular accounting package or even manually. They formed an association of organizations which had similar business needs and then approached vendors with their requirements. Finally they got a customized ERP, standardized for the group at a lesser cost.

What IT vendors must keep in mind

Panelists also put forth the point that vendors need to understand the difference between an SMB and a large business when approaching as a solution provider. They need to simplify their IT jargons and explain to them technology and the associated business benefits in simple terms. This would help in spreading technology awareness, virally, amongst SMBs.