Impact of Digital Technology and its Tools on SMEs
Range and Variety of ICT Tools Relevant to
SMEs
All the main
sources (IDC; McKinsey Global Institute MGI; IBM Research GTO; Accenture
Technology Vision; IT 2020 At Kearney) agree in identifying the following
technologies as the most important trends affecting the ICT market and the
socio-economic system in the next ten years:
·
Mobility and
Mobile Apps: The incredibly
rapid penetration of mobile devices and technologies in the market and the
broad phenomenon of leveraging mobile solutions in the business environment;
·
Cloud computing: the disruptive delivery model of software and ICT
services, based on flexible and on-demand business models;
·
Big data analytics: a new generation of technologies and
architectures, designed to economically extract value from very large volumes
of a wide variety of data, by enabling high velocity capture, discovery, and/or
analysis;
·
Social media
technologies: the use of social
media within and outside the enterprise, implementing social marketing
techniques and facilitating collaboration and knowledge sharing;
·
Internet of
Things (IoT): A dynamic global network infrastructure with
self-configuring capabilities based on standard and interoperable communication
protocols where physical and virtual “things” have identities, physical
attributes, and virtual personalities, use intelligent interfaces, and are
seamlessly integrated into the information network.
In addition, the following trends have been
selected for their impact on market dynamics and the demand of skills:
·
Customer Experience IT (CXIT) refers to the IT-related investments
required to manage and optimise the customer's (or a citizen's) experience with
an organisation. This is a new concept reflecting the increasing convergence of
innovative IT (mobile, social technologies, cloud, Big Data, Internet of Things
(IoT)) into applications and services centred on the customer experience,
implemented through investments made by business managers other than CIOs.
·
IT security: given the
increasing dependency of European organisations on ICT systems, and the growing
complexity of connected environments, there is strong demand for and diffusion
of software and tools to ensure systems security at all levels.
Impact of Digital
Technology on changing consumer behaviour and on businesses
Digital technologies
hold potential for the creation of new businesses and opportunities including,
innovation, new ways of engaging with customers, higher revenue streams, faster
times ‘to-market’, enhanced service provision, reduced costs and increased
productivity. While small businesses are
increasing their digital footprint and are more active in website development,
they are less active in integrating and capitalising on the potential of the
ever increasing array of digital technologies, in particular engaging in
ecommerce; selling to international customers via ecommerce and mobile
marketing, therefore missing out on market expansion and sales opportunities
(Ettlie and Pavlou, 2006; Kohli and Grover, 2008; Rai et al., 2012). Entrepreneurs and owner-managers need to
transition their business activities to a ‘go digital’ mode of behaviour with
digital technologies becoming an essential component of modern business. Trends
such as virtualisation, cloud computing and social networking are likely to
intensify in their presence in the ‘go digital’ process adopted in business,
education, learning and social contexts. In order to move the entrepreneur and
owner-manager to the ‘go digital’ mind-set and mode of behaviour they need to
develop associated e-Leadership competencies and capabilities to enable the
productive use of digital technologies across and between business functions.
By Mwansa Matimba,
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