Throughout the world, one finds that small, medium and large enterprises (SMEs) are playing a critical role in absorbing labour, penetrating new markets and generally expanding economies in creative and innovative ways. South Africa has reflected substantial enterprise development, demonstrating a growing potential for continued SME market expansion.
However, their growth and financial success will be dependent on using the latest communications technologies on offer. Every SME requires effective communication systems to further drive and facilitate growth and development.
According to a Siemens sponsored global study, research shows that communications barriers and latencies can cost small and medium businesses up to 40% of their productive time. On average, 70% of employee respondents of SMEs with up to 400 employees said they spend up to 17.5 hours each week addressing the pain points caused by communications barriers and latencies.
Research conducted locally has shown that there is very little awareness of unified communications (UC) as a solution to addressing communication barriers and latencies.
Raymond Padayachee, chief executive of Siemens Enterprise Communications says: “If companies do not address inefficient communication issues they could be losing huge amounts of revenue. As the global economic crisis takes further effect, key decision-makers are going to have to become more conscious about the cost saving benefits of tailored communications solutions.”
Researchers have also determined that the time spent per week dealing with communications issues was more than 50% higher in companies with more than 20 employees. This is reflective of the local SME market in South Africa. The study concluded that companies with 100 or more employees could be losing substantial amounts of money each year by not addressing their employees' most painful communications issues.
Says Padayachee: “There are numerous pain points when it comes to inefficient communications. Issues related to inefficient co-ordination, waiting for information, unwanted communications, customer complaints and barriers to communications are all top of mind when it comes to successfully addressing communication issues within any growing enterprise.”
Inefficient co-ordination presents a major problem in any enterprise. Trouble co-ordinating communications among team members affects their ability to respond quickly to time sensitive customer requests. Excessive time spent on attempting synchronisation across team members slows the realisation of goals and unnecessarily extends deadlines.
Work delays are inevitable if fellow employees are waiting for information from others in the workplace. Often an employee will leave a message for a fellow co-worker and the delay in response could negatively affect critical business processes. Research indicates that employees average 3.5 hours per week attempting to contact and trace fellow colleagues.
Unwanted communications, including low-priority calls and voice mail also become a hindrance to company and employee performance. These interruptions create distractions and disrupt workflow, leading to lower productivity and missed deadlines.
Another pain point related to inefficient communications issues is that of customer service. Says Padayachee: “In a country where customer service is a hot issue, reliable and efficient communications are a necessity. Employees often have to spend a great deal of time dealing with customer complaints because the customer was unable to reach them in a timely fashion. The cost of customer dissatisfaction could be crippling to a company.”
Unified communications appears to be the gateway to success when it comes to dealing with communications barriers and latencies. Increased mobility, instant messaging, presence and videoconferencing are just some of the tools that can be used to solve the increasingly fragmented communications landscape of the South African SME market. Frost & Sullivan analysts state that companies can eliminate up to 20% of hidden costs due to inefficient communications infrastructure.
“Although we are seeing a great deal of growth in the SME market, research indicates that up to 60% of SMEs are not currently using a UC solution and are missing out on a major opportunity to cut costs. In addition, they can gain new levels of competitiveness, productivity and collaboration,” says Padayachee.
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