The small business category in SA has escalated over the past decade or so. Given the right guidance, tools and opportunities, most of these businesses have become success stories.
According to Avaya, a foreign example is Domainmonster.com, which operates in 133 different countries, reaching a customer base of 100 000, with just 15 employees. The company has found that its enhanced communications capabilities have allowed it to increase productivity and compete with bigger brands that benefit from a larger employee base.
Avaya mentions that any CEO of any size business will express how critical communication is to their growth and survival in today's market. "This technology has the potential to catapult small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) onto a global stage. As the world becomes more global, business is becoming less bound to location but increasingly reliant on communication. This opens up a wealth of opportunity for SMEs to compete with their larger counterparts, regardless of where they are based. The key to competing and surviving is having the right technologies in place to communicate quickly and efficiently," says Avaya.
Considering that the world has moved from a 15-second one to a three- or four-second one in the past couple of years, with customers wanting answers in minutes rather than days, it's visible how this technology makes SMEs more contactable and responsive, says Avaya, adding that they are also able to remain connected to colleagues and customers wherever they are. This technology does not require a huge upfront investment. Many SMEs invest in essentials and add new applications as the business grows.
The SME market is increasingly driven by mobility and collaboration, where employees need and expect to have access to all communications on one mobile device. Trends like bring your own device (BYOD), where employees bring their own smartphones into the office because they are intuitive and familiar, are having a big impact on this segment in particular, says Avaya.
"This is because not all small businesses have strict communications policies and guidelines in place but employees still want to be able to use the devices that allow them to be as productive as possible. The challenge for the business is finding a flexible way of harnessing the power that these devices hold, and satisfying the user demand, but in a manageable and secure business capacity. This trend is gathering pace, but SMEs can easily capitalise on it by implementing unified communications (UC) solutions, which include a comprehensive suite of intuitive, easy-to-use business communications tools for consumer-oriented mobile devices."
According to Avaya, before implementing any solution, businesses need to make sure they are aware of what devices their staff use and what implications the new solution will have on their network. A mixed model is best for many small businesses as they can leverage the benefits of UC without falling into a potential trap of having to pay out for a whole new network to get there.
If the solution does not integrate, then SME employees will likely give out their mobile numbers rather than the company's business number. That can cause obvious issues for the business down the road. Essentially, the interoperability with popular devices is vital, concludes Avaya.
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