In
India, according to the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium
Enterprises, SMBs contribute between 8-9% to the GDP and 34% to the
total exports of the country. But the real reason why SMBs are more
critical is that they have a wider socio-economic impact. On the one
hand, they push industrial growth and provide employment, and on the
other, they affect social transformation and encourage economic self
reliance at the grassroots level. An SMB, however, needs every help
it can get to sustain and grow, and to continue to affect this
socio-economic transformation. With technology by its side, an SMB
can multiply its potential and spread its impact wider, while growing
its profits.
The
use of ICT can help an SMB automate everyday tasks, including the
management of customer orders, invoicing, tracking production,
tracking delivery and managing product and customer information.
Automating everyday tasks doesn't just improve efficiency, it also
helps contain costs. With the use of a website, an SMB can attract
customers from all over the world. The existing customers can be
serviced better with the use of better and more efficient sales and
marketing tools, targeted selling due to better management of
customer information and preferences, better communication with
customers, remove order and delivery errors and gather and
incorporate customer feedback. Hopefully our solution providers too
are following this path of helping the SMBs grow.
While
technology for business has been around for a while, SMBs have been
reluctant in their overture towards it because it earlier came at a
price the SMB could not afford, and often
with features that the SMB did not need. All that has changed. Today,
there are ICT tools designed and priced specifically for SMBs.
Starting
with a very small investment and leading up to the entire business
model developed around ICT, there is something for every SMB to
consider. Just a desktop or laptop computer and an internet
connection can catapult an SMB into the league of connected
businesses! With these two things, the door to information and e-mail
communication is opened. Searching the web, communicating with
partners and customers and maintaining office records are all
automated. The partners do have a major role to play here.
(rajneeshd@cybermedia.co.in)