What has technology brought to the small and medium enterprises to really help them? What is next?

Question

Technology has brought the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) a faster way to do things and not necessarily a better way. Many messaging platforms have been created. Many programs and systems have been build. A lot of information is now available at an instant. Perhaps the three most important contributions are the email and instant messaging (a bidirectional contextless messaging system), the erp (a system that records all transactions in a computer), ant the internet (a way of getting information and connections with customers and suppliers). There are many others, yet they don't seem to be so entrenched in the majority of SMEs.

My question is, what is next for systems and programs for SMEs? It seems that people in SMEs are still struggling with basic management processes, task tracking, and useful information for decision making. What is next for SMEs?

Answer 1

I think in terms of an adoption life cycle... Most technology starts out as bespoke solutions for a particular organisation/need. As an idea becomes more mainstream, companies appear in the space and start offering (often expensive) products to fulfill that needs. As the space becomes better understood and more widely adopted by business the space starts to become commoditised and solutions vendors start to compete on price. As prices drop these solutions/products come within reach of SME's who can then start to adopt them.

An example of this would me relational database technology. Many years ago you would have crafted a data storage solution specifically for your application using fopen() and it's friends (I used to work with a SME ERP solution which began life in the early 80's did just that). When relational databases appeared, they were expensive products only available on a Large Enterprise budget. As the benefits became clear more players entered the market at different price points and serving different niches (compare MS Access, MS SQL Server and Oracle for example). Today the relational database space is fully commoditised, with solutions at a huge range of price points (from expensive to free) and features.

So, what technology is available today to Enterprises, but hasn't been fully commoditised yet, or is too expensive or too hard for a SME to adopt. I'd say things like:

1. Business Intelligence - Better information leads to better decisions. BI stuff is often still expensive or bespoke.
2. VoIP - Better telecoms facilities at a fraction of the price. Today requires technical knowledge that a SME likely won't have on hand.
3. Electronic Data Interchange - Achieve cost savings through electronic exchange of information. Standards exist, but your SME's accounting.ERP package likely doesn't support them, nor possibly do all of their suppliers.
4. eCommerce - Reach a larger audience and potentially achieve cost savings by allowing customer self service. Solutions exist, but often require customisation for a specific customer, leading to part-generic part-bespoke solutions.

5 years ago I worked for an ERP solution provider targeting SME's and we were starting to implement various solutions for the above, but only for those who specifically requested them. I'd imagine they're approaching mainstream now.

Answer 2

Customer Relationship Management or Business Intelligence would seem to be a couple of big ideas that may move into the SME space soon. CRM is kind of like taking that email and instant messaging and adding telephone conversations so that there is a single point of all contact with a customer, which can be a useful thing in some cases. Business Intelligence is what comes after having an ERP system up for some time as the amount of order data grows so that analysis for trends can be done.

If you want the overhyped buzzwords for SMEs, that would be cloud computing, Saas, and Web 2.0 to my mind.

Answer 3

'Google Apps' and similar, whereby the SME can buy quality off-the-shelf services that require few technical skills on the part of the enterprise. This allows them to focus on the core business.

This trend will continue, with SMEs adopting newer technologies more quickly than large ones.

Answer 4

In no particular order

• Business Intelligence
• Havin' a website & using RSS streams
• Softwares As A Service & Cloud Computing
• Portails