Category: Strategy

Billions of devices are expected to connect to the Internet in the next few years. These connected devices are part of what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT). It is not only going to change the way we live but also the way we look at our own lives. The cellphone may become an antique, just like the typewriter did, some experts believe, thanks to the Internet of Things. Instead, people may use various surfaces and devices with sensors to access the Internet. What is the buzz Internet of Things all about? With this kind of a fundamental change to the way we work, play and live, Internet of Things is not just another buzzword. It is a new reality which we must be prepared for and also plunges well in advance. Consulting firm Gartner predicts that more than 21 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020. With increasing the availability of broadband and lower costs of accessing it, Internet of Things could reach even the poorest and most isolated societies of the world. Moreover, sensors are easily built into devices these days, making things easy for manufacturers and companies to connect devices and objects to the Internet. How is Internet of Things going to change people’s lives? The Internet of Things is a concept that involves an object’s ability to connect to the Internet, as long as it has an on and off switch. It could be something as simple as a bread toaster to something as complex as a ship. This could mean, the refrigerator can send you a text message if the ice cream is ready or if the milk is getting spoiled. Your computer service guy could warn you when your hard disk is about to crash. Your clothes could tell you if you are about to get a skin allergy. Your glasses could monitor infections in your eye. Your car could warn you if someone you don’t want to meet is also on their way downtown when you decide to go out in the town on a weekend. The possibilities are really endless. The Internet of Things is likely to change everything that we ever knew. It is almost going to be like how we were not prepared for the Internet and it took us by surprise. Even as we are talking about the Internet of Things, it is already happening. Companies will be able to make use of this in a number of ways. Internet of Things could make products more productive, long lasting and companies more profitable. These sensors could give them valuable behavioral insights and enhance customer support. Companies can also use the Internet of Things to ensure that customers will keep coming back, even after many years. The possibilities are endless for both the consumer and the manufacturer. SMEs stand to gain a lot from the IoT revolution Even the smallest of companies can make use of the Internet of Things and there really is no denying this fact. With the advent of wearable devices, there will be a new layer of connectivity with consumers. With the Internet of Things and omni-channel business models, the chasm between consumers and companies will no longer exist. It will all be a seamless and integrated process where both the business and its customers will learn about each other, making the world a more efficient and easier place to live in. With all these factors in mind, it is important to understand how the SME sector will benefit from the IOT revolution. How can the Internet of Things help small and medium enterprises? What we really need to remember is that the Internet of Things is not just for the larger businesses. Smaller businesses can benefit from IoT in a number of ways which we will discuss later on. The IoT is expected to help you in your product design and marketing strategies, based on consumer behavior. Whether you have a small or a complex product, maintenance of the same should become really easy, and with this, your reputation will build. Thus, your product sales should enhance as well. Most importantly, Internet of Things will help smaller companies to offer better devices that are engineered in a more advanced manner. Stores can use sensors to improve their logistics as well while also monitoring how products are handled and what their conditions are. If this is connected to the ERP, E-commerce stores can benefit from the Internet of Things too. Another interesting way a small business can benefit from the Internet of Things is by changing the manufacturing process altogether. Internet of things can help you go green and meet regulation requirements In fact, people have already realized that sensors can ensure that there will be lesser greenhouse gasses released or that less energy is consumed. Sensors can communicate when energy is consumed more than what is recommended. This brings us to the subject of regulations. There is nothing better than sensors which will inform small and medium manufacturers if their products are working as suggested by regulators. Meeting regulations and guidelines is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Internet of Things. Internet of Things can help small companies with their fleet maintenance and transportation too. While this is the same as the benefit arising from logistics, IoT will help smaller businesses to understand how their products are being delivered and which target demographics is using the products more. It also has wider ramifications in the fields of medicine and agriculture. With wearable devices on the rise, smaller companies can fix sensors that can provide intelligent data about health and wellness. Even an everyday wearable item such as a pair of socks can provide information about body heat and warn the user if he or she is going to fall sick. Without a doubt, IoT will have to go hand in hand with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and HRMS. One can say, the

It is a well-known strategy among web designers to provide a seamless experience across devices. They call it the responsive design. When one speaks about responsive design, one can open a website on a desktop, tablet, and a cellphone simultaneously, and the website adjusts to the screen size without losing, distorting the intended user experience. Responsive design is all about making browsing and accessing information across devices seamless. Now, if we use the same philosophy in marketing, we would imagine that there has to be a similar marketing strategy across devices and channels, both online and offline. Some people call this omni-channel experience. What is the omni-channel business model? Omni-channel model (sometimes spelled omnichannel or omni channel) is not just about providing a seamless experience across devices. The responsive design already does that. It takes responsive philosophy a step further and uses seamlessness across the enterprise. This naturally means whether one is working for a company, a customer who is shopping or a person who is interested in information, all experience seamlessness in its true sense, across different channels. Omni-channel business model is not just about doing multi-channel model in a seamless and better way. It is about running a business as if all channels, spaces and business processes were one and the same, regardless of who is doing what in which situation. This seamlessness brings in more accountability, efficiency, productivity and of course, enhances user experience. Most big companies already follow omni-channel business models. Amazon, for instance, has a seamless way of conducting business across mobile and desktop devices, while also coordinating with logistics, inventories, and CRM. We can say, omni-channel business model is enterprise processes and responsive design on steroids. Indeed, omni-channel business model is being used by smaller businesses too. This brings us to the topic of SMEs making use of omni-channel models in order to make it big. There are both opportunities and challenges with this strategy. In this article, let us take a look at both. Understanding omni-channel model at a deeper level Omni-channel business model is all about how you enable your clients and customers to engage with various channels and help you remain in sync with the business processes all along so that you can ensure as much as possible that there is a checkout in the end. It is bringing both online and offline channels together while remaining true to your core business philosophy. It is about taking multi-channel model to a completely new level where integration and seamlessness make it a different business model altogether. A good omni-channel model makes use of multiple channels and uses consumer data to integrate business objectives, design, goals and communication across channels and devices. For instance, your new customer may have asked you a question on Twitter. However, when they land up at your brick and mortar store, they shouldn’t have to explain everything they need from the beginning. It is about being aware of the context and providing a business process management that is in sync with agile personalization. It is about bringing the cloud and on-premise solutions together. It is about creating a unitary experience across social media, mobile devices, agencies, stores and the web. All this involves a knowledge infused process consisting of Experience analytics Live chatting and co-browsing Web self-service Guided scripting Marketing campaigns Social media campaigns Online and offline communication Responsive technology Knowledge management With many SMEs adopting omni-channel business model as a primary strategy, it is important to understand both the challenges and opportunities it provides. There are a number of both pros and cons. In this section let us take a look at some of the most important challenges and opportunities. These are the challenges: Associating Omni-channel model with inventory As previously said, going omni-channel is all about ensuring that there is seamlessness and integration across channels and media. This also means the inventory must be available or not available, depending on whatever the case, in a seamless manner. This takes a considerable effort as people who purchase in a brick and mortar store may find that what they need is no longer available, even if they had cross-checked before leaving home. It becomes slightly difficult to ensure that omni-channel is really seamless in certain situations like this unless there is someone to monitor all the time and also to communicate to the customers. It is not always perfect. Staying relevant in a changing market While omni-channel model is as relevant as it could get today, remaining relevant in all spheres of your business may be a challenge. This means, remaining omni-channel throughout your business career remains a challenge for a number of reasons. Marketing techniques, customer preferences, technology etc change very quickly. To be omni-channel truly, one needs to also remain in sync with the changes and make all those changes seamless across business processes. Remaining technically up-to-date One of the main reasons why omni-channel business model is preferred is because it lets customers and staff to have a seamless experience no matter where they access different business processes, which of course includes buying or selling. However, for this seamlessness to remain consistent, one needs to continuously seek the help of developers and responsive designers who ensure that deeper levels of integration are made possible. There is nothing more undesirable than being irrelevant in a world that is constantly changing. Staff training Being omni-channel also requires the help and assistance of the staff. Staff will need to be trained about its challenges and also the custom process of handling an omni-channel strategy. While this may not sound like a lot, training the staff requires additional expenditure and probable investment made to customize existing HRMS, through which training models can be delivered. While there are many challenges to using omni-channel models, there are many advantages and opportunities too, for the SME sector. Let us take a look at some of the important ones: Redefine your digital brand Going omni-channel helps you to redefine yourself in a digital space.

In the recent years, we have seen a shift from using fixed, structured data to big data, which tends to be dynamic and really complex. It is also called big for a reason. The amount of data generated today is almost unbelievable. While it may seem like a lot of this data is trivial, it is not so. Big data analytics are regularly used by large companies to understand the world they work in, predict business outcomes and engage in expert business analytics. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) also can make use of the big data in a similar manner. Both small and medium companies are beginning to understand the importance of Big Data analytics A research shows that medium-sized companies have more Big Data deployments than larger companies. Smaller companies are actively involved in using Big Data too, according to a research published by Dell. This leaves us with, what companies are doing with big data to achieve competitive results and reach markets that they didn’t know existed. No company can easily say that they know what they want to the market and what is expected from the market and leave it at that. Even smaller companies cannot afford to do this anymore. Big data helps companies to get the larger picture and often analytics help to predict in which direction the business might go well in advance. This kind of useful information and analytics can help a fledgling small company grow larger in size and stature. The common knowledge now is, if a company is using machine-generated data, customer attitudes and market behavior for their business, they should be using Big Data, according to an article published by Enterprise Apps Today. How is the data used? There are many difficulties in understanding how big data can be used. Most CEOs often wonder who is going to use the big Data, how much of it is useful for their companies and who in the company will actually be able to make sense of the analytics that the software programs will churn out. All the data that a company generates, even the ones in QuickBooks can be used to predict business trends. According to an important study published by the Stanford University, the cloud is making Big Data even more accessible to smaller companies. In fact, cloud-based Big Data analytics will be the future of smaller and medium-sized companies, according to the report. This democratization will help companies to access market data that weren’t easily available. Thankfully, to cut a long story short, big data analytics can be purchased through consultants, without smaller companies having to invest in either the software or the cloud infrastructure, thanks to Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service and Platform as a Service (SaaS, Iaas and PaaS). Most importantly, Big Data Analytics can help companies to tap into new markets that they didn’t know existed. In this article, let us take a look at how this happens: 1. Helps you to break down the market Small and medium-sized enterprises often do not have access to data that helps them to break down markets according to demographics and psychographics. Demographics provide details about socioeconomic status, ethnics, age and other such markers. Psychographics provide information about a target audience’s behavior. This kind of data helps marketing professionals to understand what makes people buy and what can make them motivated enough to make a purchase. SMEs desperately need this kind of data so that they can create branding campaigns that are better suited for the newer market. Analytics provide that data which is required by these marketing professionals. 2. Big Data helps in understanding future trends A new market poses not only opportunities but also challenges and threats. A sensible marketing department will try to predict possible threats and risks in a new market before coming up with a marketing strategy. This is quite understandable as once we know what to expect, it is easier to face the threat. Big Data analytics help SMEs with the kind of information they need to predict future trends. This is one of the reasons why more companies are investing in big data analysis software. This helps them to not only predict future but also understand various quirks of a new market. 3. Big Data helps you to understand the data which you create Big data is not all about the large amounts of data which is churned out by companies all over the world. Data analytics software programs help you to number crunch your own data. Most companies create large amounts of data every day and all this data can be processed to understand various scenarios. The more data that is created is analyzed, the clearer will be the picture you probably will have. For this, it is necessary to start using big data analytics. Interestingly, smaller companies are more aware of the data they create than larger ones, according to one research paper. 4. Big Data helps you choose an enterprise strategy One of the biggest troubles with traditional market research is assessing who is going to market which product or service on which platform. While platforms are many, one still needs to understand the core audience and the kind of platforms they use. For this, analytics will provide valuable insight which you probably would not have found otherwise. Moreover, this kind of data analytics was previously only available to larger companies who could invest in their own servers. However, with the explosion of cloud-based services, data analytics are coming the way of SMEs too. In other words, it helps you to choose an enterprise strategy with respect to marketing in new waters. 5. Localize branding strategies One of the biggest problems that smaller players encounter is, they do not understand the local market. The same marketing strategies that worked in a previous market will not work in a new one. They will need to re-brand and re-work their entire strategy. This requires expensive analytics and data-crunching.