Small and medium businesses (SMB) have no shortage of challenges. Bootstrapping a one-person shop into a competitive powerhouse takes grit, patience and a certain level of trust in the tools chosen to help grow the business.
To stay productive and address the unique needs of these companies, finding the right enterprise technology is key. As the data from a recent survey of 175 IT pros from Spiceworks shows, SMBs can benefit from taking advantage of enterprise tools to help with collaboration and communications. Here’s how:
More time for the IT team
IT pros often have a lot of work on their plate in small and medium business settings. They have to take on tasks as an individual that are normally delegated to multiple members of a team in larger corporations, such as password resets, helpdesk requests and hardware issues.
According to the survey, IT teams want to simplify management (58 percent) and simplify troubleshooting and support (47 percent). Using the right enterprise technology will do just that. It will relieve some of the work often shuffled to the IT team by providing self-service options and pulling all relevant queries and issues into one easy-to-use dashboard.
Expanding Globally
As SMBs grow their business, they might consider expanding their reach beyond of their home state or country. Ensuring that those remote employees have the tools they need to be productive and connected to other offices is critical to their success. In fact, 38 percent of IT pros surveyed said supporting mobile and remote employees is a top consideration for enterprise tools.
The right enterprise solution will be able to tackle the growing global workforce head on by providing a more flexible collaboration and communications tool to connect employees everywhere. Employees in London should be able to easily collaborate and communicate with the headquarters in L.A. and remote workers in New York.
Productivity and efficiency will soar
Many enterprise tools can help streamline workflows so employees don’t have to spend extra time searching for what they need. One of the top reasons IT pros need to consider enterprise collaboration and communications tools is to increase efficiency and productivity. Forty-nine percent of IT respondents at SMBs responded as such according to the survey.
If the enterprise tools are cloud-based — which many are — having a system that allows for seamless integration makes it easier for employees to get their work done without having to pull up a new tool or dig for data in another app.
Ultimately, small and medium businesses require a level of savviness that enterprise technology can help fulfill. By employing tools and solutions that help simplify business workflows, the company can focus on bigger challenges.
