 "Emerging Co Today, Giant Tomorrow With Communication Tech")
Every growing enterprise has a dream to become a giant. The right communication and technology strategy has the ability to catalyse this metamorphosis, and they must get the strategy right. With the smart use of communication technology emerging companies can not only deliver product and services innovation and offer unparalleled customer service and quality, but also build operational efficiencies and ease their way to becoming tomorrow’s giants. Along their growth journey, these emerging enterprises need to factor in the imperative of ‘do more with less’ while dealing with the challenge of meeting regulatory and compliance requirements that are far more challenging for growing businesses to manage. And of course, there is the ever present threat of competition. Communication strategies need to encompass and effectively address all these elements.
Biztech2.com’s Communications Technologies for Emerging Businesses, powered by Vodafone, aimed to resolve this and more. The event witnessed an informative and engaging panel discussion that featured eminent panellists such as Viraj Sawant, CEO, Idealake Information Technologies, Jayesh K Rambhia – Hon Chairman AIPMA Plastic Parks & Projects (All India Plastics Manufacturers Association), also MD of Premsons Plastics Pvt Ltd, Bharat Dhuppar - Head Marketing, Omkar Realtors and Deepak Pande, Executive Vice President & Head, SME Business, Vodafone India.
The panel discussion drove the motive of helping SME/mid-size business leaders understand how they can viably leverage communication technologies to build a competitive advantage, grow their businesses, improve profitability, drive business innovation and manage compliance challenges through these technologies. Stressing on the topic of making optimum use of technology to the business’ benefit, Sawant said, “Many of today’s corporate giants reached these heights by leveraging technology, platforms and services which were available for free or for very low costs.”
“Small businesses are individual-driven and they have to evolve to become systems-driven. Technology can get you there,” said Dhuppar of Omkar Realtors, agreeing on the inevitable role of technology in business. “As small companies, we are scared of new technologies. Today, we are left with no choice but to adopt,” he further added.
The panellists shared their experience of how their businesses breached new heights after the adoption of automation and technology. Voicing his opinion on how an emerging business can scale up only if it has set standard policies in place, Pande of Vodafone said, “Most emerging businesses face the same question – How do we build standard processes?” The answer to this, he explained, is technology. Sawant, Rambhia and Dhuppar, following suite, shared their views on how adopting the simplest of technologies ensured them more output in production, lead generation for marketing, better customer service and much more.
The panellists also delved on subjects such as how smart use of communication technology can reduce business costs, how can a marketer leverage communications technology to reach out to a wider audience and communicate its message better, and how smart use of communication technology can drive business innovation.
The panel also shed some light on the key communications technologies SMEs should focus on and how to leverage upcoming innovations such as machine-to-machine communication.
In addition to constructive insights, the attendees at the event also witnessed a live demo of various Vodafone services, targeted at SMEs and emerging companies. This Technology Zone showcased services such as MiFi - a small and handy device to create a wi–fi hot spot through which five devices can be connected and Micro VBB (Vehicle Black Box) that enables worldwide protection and control of vehicle through mobile using SMS as a medium. Another service that was showcased was PTS that is the Person Tracking System and Micro IBB (Intelligent Black Box) which is a security solution to ensure safety and provides life-support for unmanned locations and locations of critical importance to the company. It functions with the help of various electronic sensors and then alerts the authorised users on their mobile phones, through voice calls on land lines and emails.