: Small businesses have long been viewed as outsiders in a market dominated by giants. However, don't you believe that things have changed? Because, although they're considered small businesses, adopting certain digital solutions has changed their story, enabling SMEs to match or even surpass bigger rivals.
The number of new small businesses has grown over the last two years to an estimated 5.2 million, according to records. Economic, technological, and cultural shifts have resulted in a large number of new SMEs entering the market. This increase in digital transformation has created a space for small businesses to grow and started a new trend in small business commercialisation.
But still, people are perplexed about what had pushed SMEs to this much of a surge. This is due to the fact that most customers believe small businesses find it difficult to compete with larger firms. However, do you think this comparison is still relevant today? This ego has changed because, currently, some of the larger predators seem to find it more difficult to deal with SMEs.
In this blog we will be discussing how the existing digital solutions act as a catalyst for small business growth. Before that, let’s take a more profound look into what 'digital solutions' actually mean.
Digital Solutions: Why Do They Matter for Small Businesses?
It’s clear that the digital solution services are acting as the catalyst for small businesses to chart their graph upwards. Thus, it's important to understand what "digital solutions" really mean.
Digital solutions, to put it simply, are the use of digital tools and services that alter the way your business functions and use these tools to address particular problems in a variety of industries. Implementing these solutions can provide your business with organised working structures and transparent communication, as well as foster innovation. From software applications to cloud services, digital solutions consist of a wide range of offerings that benefit both businesses and individuals.
The majority of digital solutions are based on digital technologies such as social media, digital analytics, cloud, IoT, AI, blockchain, biometrics, robotics, machine learning, and so on. Using digital solutions does not make your business a digital one; instead, it’s helping your business get ahead of the big companies, transforming them into your competitors.
The Need of Digital Solutions in Small Businesses
Customers have an attitude that small businesses can’t meet their expectations, and they don’t have the capital to invest in a large company. But the solution is visible in the trends that are transforming the image of small businesses.
This is where the question, "Why is there a need for small businesses?" gains importance. Most of the consumers are coming from average financial backgrounds, so people tend to look for businesses that cater to their needs according to the money they can provide.
The significance of small businesses in that context emerges from their dedication to customer satisfaction, with monetisation coming in second. Additionally, they are acting as a server that offers their customers unique and irreplaceable value rather than merely being a scaled-down version of the larger corporates.
In addition, small companies play a significant role in offering more jobs, inspiring more innovations than large firms and enhancing local economic development through the supply of diversified products and services. Hence, the growth of such companies is important in meeting the demands of their clients.
Small businesses are essential in this quickly growing environment, as was previously mentioned, so something that can speed up their growth is also needed. Digital solutions are beginning to play a significant role in this area
Digital solutions do more than just help small businesses with their operations. Instead, they are bridging the gap between failure and success by keeping the small businesses in balance and gathering special concepts and features that they can utilise.
10 Digital Solutions That Every Small Business Needs
We did talk about the influence and significance of digital solutions for every small business. Choosing the best solution for your business from among the available options is what is required. Each business requires its own solution; hence, here are some of the digital solutions that are mostly helping in the digital transformation for SMEs.
- Websites and Online Presence: Making sure that your website and online presence are at the top of the internet is crucial to putting your company on the digital map. Without a lot of technical know-how, small businesses can create user-friendly websites by using tools like WordPress, Shopify, Wix, etc. Aside from that, they allow businesses to display their products or services, integrate with online stores, and provide more secured online presence.
CRM & ERP systems: Making your business digitally upfront doesn’t help you transform globally. Focused structuring on managing customer interactions, sales, and marketing is also important, which requires CRM and ERP systems for SMEs. All these come under CRM (Customer Relationship Management), which helps small businesses attract, convert, and retain customers. Finally, integrating all essential business operations onto a single platform can be facilitated by putting ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) into place.
Cloud storage & collaboration platforms: Keeping your files, documents, and data secure through online services is essential for helping your business keep all your data safe and accessible. Cloud-based solutions for small businesses can be a crucial tool that helps your employees work from anywhere at any time, as remote work has become popular for most businesses since the pandemic. Along with that, collaboration platforms are also necessary to keep your team connected and efficient.
Digital Marketing Tools: For digital transformation, the most required solution is making use of the digital marketing tools available for your businesses. Some of the digital marketing tools that help in growing your business are social media management, email marketing, and digital analytics to track the performance.
E-commerce solutions: Your customers are mostly residing in a digital age where they are intrigued by internet shopping more than ever. That is because it offers you more choices and gives you access beyond local markets. Thus, e-commerce solutions for small businesses are required to sell more, spend less, and accelerate faster with convenience, scalability, and customer insights.
Cybersecurity Solutions: Because most small businesses rely heavily on online transactions and data sharing, it is critical to protect them from cyber attacks. As a result, using tools to protect your business from small viruses, malware, and phishing attacks is critical. Password managers can also offer secure login and prevent all necessary accounts from being compromised.
Project & Task Management Tools: You would have to deal with multiple tasks and deadlines when you begin a business. Initially, this could be a bit of a struggle, but with the appropriate management platforms and tools, team projects, task allocation, and tracking in real-time will be easy. Incorporating these tools into your business will increase the collaborations, reduce miscommunications, and make it cost-effective.
- Customer Support & Chatbots: Customers tend to follow the companies that respond more quickly to their requirements. Therefore, providing faster and effective customer care is crucial for small businesses to gain the trust of the customers. Incorporating customer support tools and automated chatbots enable companies to respond to customers 24/7.
Business Intelligence and Analytics Tools: Consistency in understanding performance and customer behaviour is key to the successful expansion of your business. Google Analytics and other such tools aggregate and display data visually, which is insightful in offering information regarding website traffic, sales patterns, and consumer tastes.
Accounting & Finance software: Correct accounting to keep the finances under control is vital for small businesses. A time-consuming and error-prone manual process. But using tools that can automate your invoices, track expenses, payroll processing, and financial reporting, your financial management will be accurate and quicker within a shorter time period.
Common Challenges Small Businesses Face in Going Digital
Every field, along with growth, has to face certain challenges. Therefore, small businesses also have to face some challenges when transforming into the digital age.
- One of the major problems they face is digital literacy and adaptation. Keeping up with rapidly evolving digital technologies requires constant knowledge and learning. Most of the small businesses struggle with their limited resources to invest in those kinds of training and upgrades.
- As businesses are moving totally into the online phase, they are becoming more susceptible to cybersecurity threats since they lack resources for robust security measures.
- Not only small companies but also larger companies are adapting to digital transformation. Hence, the competition is becoming harder and harder.
- Maintaining their customers' data is critical because it requires certain compliance with regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Since these tend to be more complex and costly, it can be challenging for the small businesses.
- Establishing your business online may be easy, but maintaining the presence can be resource-intensive and challenging.
Since the majority of your market is online today, going online is also crucial for small businesses with the right digital solutions to address the growth. And it does not stop there; digital solutions can also bring advantages to small businesses that are attempting to change in terms of competition with big corporations.
Small businesses will ultimately become digital, so having the appropriate information on how to adapt and what to look out for is paramount. As most of the small companies are moving online, it's essential to see what the advantages and disadvantages are that they tend to face.
But the majority of individuals are unaware in this area. Thus, connecting with digital solution experts such as Deutsche can assist small companies in safeguarding themselves in better and more secure methods.
Get in touch with Deutsche today for professional advice on how to unlock digital solutions for your small businesses to develop and evolve fast in the digital environment.