Most small and medium enterprises (SMEs) no longer need to work from offices, thanks to the potential of GSM technology, says telecommunications consultant Maite Nathaniel Sebolai.
He argues that SMEs "do not need offices nowadays because they can use GSM technology to work anywhere at anytime and improve their business performance without the need for expensive office space".
Sebolai, who will present a case study on GSM and SMEs at the ITWeb ICT for SME conference, says "vital business tools, like Web sites, can be managed from anywhere when a company uses GSM technology".
He points out that even though SMEs are the real backbone of the South African economy, there is one remaining drawback to SMEs' greater use of technology in SA - GSM coverage.
He also points out that some of the locations in SA where SMEs are most important still have no GSM coverage, or have spotty or unreliable coverage. In addition, he adds, 3G features such as Internet access are "still a mystery" in many parts of SA outside the main urban areas.
An SME "can also choose to host its e-mail with companies like MWeb and get 10 e-mail accounts as well as space to store e-mail online", Sebolai adds. E-mail can then be accessed from anywhere, and so SMEs "do not have to worry about office-based servers when they want to access their e-mail accounts".
Increasingly, a business can even be linked to the banks via GSM and can manage the day-to-day financials of the business using cellphones. The payroll and other financial systems can be accessed from anywhere, and employees or creditors can be paid on time even when the person who controls the accounts needs to be on the move.
As for getting paid itself, a business can equally manage its accounts receivable over the GSM network. Even small companies that normally use credit and debit cards to get paid can simply carry their mobile swipe machine with them for on-the-spot transactions anywhere. He adds that there is also a huge potential for SMEs in up-and-coming social networking tools such as Facebook, Skype and Mixit.
Sebolai says cellphones are particularly cost-effective for SMEs when it comes to selling products. "A small vendor can run with very few people using GSM. For example, the company can send out promotional SMSes, which are cheaper than hiring a lot of sales people."
According to Sebolai, GSM is a cost-effective alternative for SMEs and not at all as expensive as many people still believe, especially when compared to the many different costs of running a full-scale office operation.
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