Digital Transformation is today the main challenge that SMEs must face to remain competitive. A challenge that, moreover, is extended to the entire society. Not surprisingly, this type of company represents 99.83% of the total and brings together 63% of employment in our country.
As if that were not enough, the consequences of the pandemic have been devastating. Practically all (99.73%) of the 45,000 companies that have been destroyed had less than 50 workers on their staff. Taking into account the proven power of digitization as a source of wealth and boost to GDP, it is urgent to advance in a field that will only bring benefits to all.
But what are the main challenges that small and medium-sized companies must face in their Digital Transformation? The technology employers have identified challenges that they must tackle to increase their competitiveness and resilience.
Cost Reduction
How to optimize investments and expenses associated with your critical business processes? It will be essential to develop a roadmap that allows us to optimize investments in the technologies required for the different phases of implementation. Most of the current digitization solutions are scalable and modular, which means that the investments do not necessarily have to be large.
Operational Improvement
How to increase productivity and competitiveness? Relying on technology, as well as better control of the company’s operational and production processes, is key to having a long-term competitive advantage in the market. The fact of having collaboration mechanisms with partners and suppliers can contribute to this.
Increase Market Penetration
How to make use of technological tools that increase market presence and therefore generate new business opportunities? The use of technological tools such as CRMs allow you to create surveys and send them to your most loyal customers with questions about the design, updates and features of your products or services. Social media is becoming a global showcase for customer feedback and increasing market presence. The deployment of new online tools and marketplaces allow access to products and services to a greater number of customers in a more agile way.
Innovation
How do you use innovation to address customer needs, keep them close, distinguish your offerings from competitors, and be seen as a true market leader? The use of customer knowledge tools to provide a higher level of personalization to the value proposition can be a fundamental lever to strengthen and improve the competitive proposal.
Data Analysis
How to use the information and data associated with production processes, customers, suppliers, etc. in the operation of the SME? The recording, analysis and correlation of the data associated with the company’s activity, and the use of technologies for this treatment, is a differentiating factor that can facilitate the monitoring and optimization of production processes and stock management, anticipate the market demand, customize the design of products and services, and bring them to terms of financial economic impact, helping decision making.
Cybersecurity
How to protect business and customer data while ensuring compliance with current regulations? SMEs are obliged to protect business and customer data by ensuring regulatory compliance in terms of data protection. Likewise, it is vitally important to ensure the use of tools that protect the business against cyber threats from the digital world, such as, for example, using secure devices, isolating threats, incorporating secure storage systems and backups in the cloud, and making use of applications for cleaning email, protecting the company network or safe browsing of employees.
Improvement Of Technological Equipment
How to identify the key technology for each business? Where to start in the implementation of technology? On many occasions, SMEs do not have enough equipment or it is obsolete, representing security risks in the face of new threats, nor with the necessary adaptation to face the transition towards digital business models. They are oriented towards “solutions” that are a technological trend when, normally, the real challenge for a large part of SMEs is to update the basic equipment in infrastructures, essential to address digital transformation.
