"Vendors should shift their focus to the small and medium size enterprise (SME) market," says Althea Bacchialoni, senior analyst at BMI-TechKnowledge (BMI-T). In line with this, BMI-T has initiated a research project aimed at exposing the vast opportunities in the local SME market.
Traditionally, over 50% of enterprise budgets have been dedicated to IT, but the focus is changing. "More SMEs are realising the growing importance of technology and are implementing technological solutions to solve real business problems," says Bacchialoni.
The government is also focusing on the SME market. According to Phumzile, Mlambo-Ngcuka, deputy Minister of Trade and Industry, the small business sector absorbs nearly 44% of the people employed in the private sector and it contributes an estimated 32.7% to the country`s gross domestic product. "Given the significant increase in the number of registered companies since the 1994 General Elections, the sector holds further promise in order to generate economic growth," he says.
Bacchialoni strongly believes that vendors should take up this opportunity. "The SME market is very unprejudiced towards what products and services they use. This is largely due to the fact that most of them are very new to the IT environment and aren`t sure about what will work for them. This gives vendors the perfect opportunity to educate the SMEs on their product and service offering," she says.
The SME Technology Barometer Report, which will be launched in December, will set out to define the technology needs of the SME market as well as assessing SME perceptions of the various vendors. The research will be conducted over 45 industry sectors and 2000 interviews with decision-makers will take place to provide this key information.
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BMI-TechKnowledge Group (BMI-T)
BMI-TechKnowledge (BMI-T) is Africa `s leading supplier of market intelligence and knowledge-based consulting in the areas of IT, telecommunications and broadcasting.
Formed over fourteen years ago, BMI-T provides its clients with an unmatched and comprehensive range of unbiased market knowledge. BMI-T conducts more than 20 000 market research business-to-business and business-to-consumer interviews and more than 100 focus group projects every year.
BMI-T has an active ongoing research publications business that has consistently published research-based market analysis covering many facets of the IT, telecommunications and emerging media sectors. This knowledge base provides the platform on which we build our customised research and consulting, including assignments such as market entry strategies, product entry strategies, channel and distribution analysis and African research.