“Never carry a knife to a gunfight.” – The Untouchables (1987).

We are already in an age where even the guns are getting better every day (and fired by autonomous intelligent drones).  This may not be an excellent analogy, yet true all the same when it comes to business. Technological advances have increased the pace in every field, and business is not insulated from it.

Instead, technology offers scope for that rare parity in agility, effectiveness, and efficiency, which no other means of production can provide to an enterprise. And SMEs can leverage it as effectively as any of their much larger peers.

Regardless of the size of your organisation, or if you are a service company or a discrete process manufacturing SME, you need to bring on the big guns to find your place at the table. And that means going digital.

Digital transformation is in vogue these days and is touted as an answer to questions of future growth or a solution to everything that ails an enterprise.

It is considered a one-stop panacea to every business challenge. And it is imperative in today’s world to go digital, just that it makes the utmost sense when driven with a sense of purpose and with a “method to the madness”.

Enterprises, especially SMEs, need to consider it part of an overall strategy if they want to stop being a fringe player and integrate with the mainstream business.

And SMEs are neither insulated from these dynamic changes in the environment nor is the digital transformation the purview or concern of only large enterprises.

Also Read: Dinner date with data: How F&B retailers can use retail data to drive sales in a post-pandemic world

The future is information-driven, and its heart is data

In a widely complex multi-variable business environment, gut-based decision-making has limitations (though it is still essential). The challenge is not a lack of data and resulting information but rather its overload to the point of analysis paralysis.

Then there is a challenge of “some” data available and data available in silos – leading to decision making in most cases being a little affair driven by a dominant variable (because that data is most visible) rather than by a complete picture.

So how does an SME go about traversing an optimum path to an information-driven enterprise? SMEs do not have the luxury of deep pockets like a large enterprise, and therefore need to narrow their focus and start small, making the best of their smaller teams and limited skill sets.

With overwhelming costs often delaying adoption, SMEs will be comforted to know that they can leverage legacy systems rather than replacing them outright and chart out a course that eventually transforms them over some time. All the while keeping in mind the dynamic nature of the environment our businesses operate in.

Some key questions that need to be answered in the process include:

• What are the business goals that drive me to look at digital transformation?
• Where do I begin my digital transformation journey?
• What areas do I need to prioritise for the best results?
• What technology and skillsets will best serve my end goals?

Part two of this four-part article series will explore the digital transformation cycle, identifying where your company stands and the steps to move towards your end goals.

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The post Digital transformation for SMEs: A matter of ‘When’, not ‘If’ (Part 1) appeared first on e27.