Combining optimal security and stability with the flexibility and agility that the market demands through innovative solutions and services is the key for SMEs to boost their growth after the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. They must also do so under the premise of immediacy and transparency, in an environment in which Smart Technologies or smart technologies continue to increase their presence in the SME ecosystem.
Small and medium-sized companies will focus in the coming months on the integration and expansion of their business processes, taking advantage of emerging technologies to facilitate and consolidate their decision-making in real-time. Technology platforms, as aggregated and intelligent solutions in themselves, will put in value the data and information that the organization manages and integrated in a single system, will provide 360º responses.
Among the main advantages that these business technology platforms will bring to SMEs, the number of applications and services they provide to connect processes and tasks stand out, facilitating decision-making based on reliable, secure, and updated data. SMEs that bet on this type of platform will be able to advance more quickly in their “reconstruction” processes after the crisis and will be better able to identify and take advantage of the opportunities for growth and differentiation that the market presents.
In the post COVID era, small and medium-sized companies will seek the support of business technology platforms since they have stopped understanding ERPs as applications in themselves. SMEs begin to internalize their proposal, as a technological platform capable of adding value to each of the functions in which it intervenes. We no longer talk about ERP as modular solutions – which they are – but as platforms that integrate different solutions, be they commercial, accounting, financial, etc., but also complementary solutions of the type, Business Intelligence, e-Commerce, CRM, etc.
In other words, the ERP has gone through its stage as a centralizer of resources, tasks, data, and functions, and now begins its new journey as a business technology platform-oriented, not only to support but to promote management, innovation, and growth of all kinds of organizations. This new ERP concept will allow small and medium-sized companies, not only to connect and integrate their IT assets but also to have the freedom to reimagine and redefine their businesses, even to impact the industry itself, the environment and drive growth. sustainable over the next few years.
Efficient data management, analytics, and increased added value and differentiation will be key strategies to underpin the growth of SMEs to overcome the crisis. In addition, any of these three strategies may be supported by an enterprise technology platform, first to make faster and smarter decisions and second to access more dynamic and enriched reports that allow the distribution and sharing of knowledge.
Finally, innovating, expanding and integrating applications will provide small and medium-sized enterprises with extensive “smart” capabilities to offer efficient responses to current business demands and scale in technology to address future needs, so that the next few months will be decisive for Small and midsize companies stop talking so much about ERP and start focusing on business technology platforms.
