SME 2010 – Emerging Trends (from AMI)
Quite interesting view about SMEs in 2010. Although it’s a worldwide report, some of them do have local relevance.
In short:
- SME will loosen ICT budget
- SME will see tangible business propositions
- Cloud Computing will struggle
- Social Media will become BI tool
- Consolidation creates Total ICT solution provider
- Managed Services capabilities chasm
Source: AMI-Partners
Comments based on the report:
(1) SME will loosen ICT budget together with the economy uptake. However, to take up CRM and ERP kind of application is a long term journey and SMEs should watch out for tie ins. Key to spending wisely during an uptake: buy what you understand, and keep using what you buy.
(2) Hollow SMB value propositions will be replaced by tangible business propositions. It’s funny coz it assumes that all these while the industry has been taking the SMEs on a ride. One key strategy for providers is to start thinking about how to make ICT solutions into bite sized, power packed applications. SMEs should look out for mis-information, always trying out the demos and learning as much about the software before putting money down.
(3) Cloud computing solutions will struggle to capitalize on the full market opportunity presented in 2010. Ironically, it’s the clouding by the cloud industry that clouded the view of cloud computing in the cloud era (don’t you hate that word as well?) I still felt that the best way to learn any technology is to try it, without burning a hole in the pocket. Although point 1 says SME will spend more, don’t count on them spending all of them in one basket.
(4) Social media will move beyond its primary role as a promotional tool into the more strategic role of business intelligence in 2010. This I particularly like. Social media’s power for businesses has only recently been unleashed with innovations over the past 2-3 years. Tools today are so advanced that those Crystal Report you have in your organization looks lame. My bug bear as usual to all BI tools is “so what?” So what if I found out that my brand is not popular amongst the Gen Y’s? Some guidance will be great!
(5) Growing number of channel partners to become ‘Total’ IT solution providers, putting pressure on existing CP skill sets. But what skills, except open even more doors and pushing even more solutions to SMEs? CPs need to adopt a new way of selling, and a new breed of products will make this even simpler to sell. The assumption in the article on vertical silos is, although true as it will percolate, not entirely the real story because many small companies buy from other small companies too. The new CP of the new decade will be the one who can sieve through many smaller products and successfully provide horizontal separation in service and support.
(6) Maturing of managed services industry will create a “capabilities chasm” among managed services providers (MSPs). This is an iffy point, mainly coz MSP itself is getting more exciting as a whole. Everyone wants to be an MSP, data centres are becoming MSPs, SIs are becoming MSPs, telcos are becoming MSPs. I guess SMEs will only focus on their comfortable one-stop provider at the end of the day, and not how “managed” their “managed services” are. Business after all, is a human enterprise.
Now I feel like doing a study on the “no-frills enterprise”, or XSE (eXtra-Small Enterprises) who uses only chiong software, open source and free SaaS by the big boys…
