IT can help smaller businesses to gain new customers to ride
through the recession, according to the latest research.
A survey of 1,000 SMEs for Salesforce.com, which was conducted
by Vanson Bourne, rated finding new customers as the most important
issue for smaller businesses.
IT plays a crucial role in helping businesses create new
opportunities to sell products and lowers the costs associated with
managing customers, research claims.
However, the survey showed that IT was a bigger expense to SMEs
than the cost of running facilities or HR.
SME businesses may be tempted to cut IT costs, but this is not
the answer, said Ciaran Rogers, who looks after IT at sailing
charity UKSA, which is a Salesforce.com user. "IT can be seen as an
unnecessary expense, but for me IT is an opportunity. To cut IT
would be inconceivable."
"The past 18 months have been challenging for SMEs. In 2009,
SMEs have to enable business with technology." advises Kneko
Burney, president and chief strategist at Compass Intelligence.
However, she believes most SMEs have no idea of IT. In the past,
smaller companies may have been burnt by buying inappropriate
customised applications, while others continue to pay high
maintenance fees on IT infrastructure, servers, licences and
support staff for traditional enterprise software.
So SMEs need to attract new customers while the IT systems they
use are too expensive to run and support. Cloud computing can help
smaller businesses lower IT costs, according to Steve Garnett, EMEA
president at Salesforce.com.
He said that unlike traditional software, where an upgrade
requires an army of Accenture consultants, SME users running
cloud-based software get their upgrades automatically.