SME-ization of the Cloud

The thing I love most about the English language is that anyone can invent a new word such as SME-ization without having to go to jail! With the support of Google and Scrabble dictionaries, I can brag about the originality of this word. Alright, enough with bragging lets dive into what SME-ization of the Cloud is all about.

SME-ization of the Cloud (abbreviated from 'Small & Medium Enterprise-ization of the Cloud'), is the phenomena of SMEs moving their business on to the Cloud.

A growing number of SMEs’ are taking to the Cloud, which says a lot about the changed attitude of the new generation of Businessmen/women in switching to business applications in the Cloud. 

This positive attitude of SMEs’ towards the Cloud is a testament to the potential benefits it has to offer. For starters, the SME has a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) because they no longer have the burden of financing Capital Expenditure for acquiring and maintaining IT resources. The other advantage is since on the Cloud, the SME only pays for what they use. Thus, there is now a Variable Expense as opposed to a fixed overhead.This results in the SME efficiently investing in scalable resources which drive profits and growth.

The solutions that are generally offered to SMEs over the Cloud are maintained and always up to date, so there is no need to bother about upgrading the software to the latest version. 

Since these Cloud services are accessible from anywhere, it means the business owner has information at hand and up-to-date in real-time to better reflect their current business position. For instance, by using a Cloud based business process system, the owner is able to continuously monitor how successful meetings with clients have been carried out by his sales and marketing teams.

As the older generations fade away into retirement, the newer IT literate generations are taking over leading roles in SME's and where opportunity presents itself, younger entrepreneurs are moving in to fill in gaps in markets and cater to highly niche clientèle. A typical example is Singapore. A highly IT oriented nation where SME's make up for 99% of businesses running there. Translated into a number, 99% of businesses are 150,000 organizations . These 150,000 SME's fiercely compete in a market space of 5 million consumers.

Yes, of course the reader may argue that those SME's are not all catering to the local market and quite a number of them concentrate on foreign clients. But thats not the point here. Instead the point being, one of the driving factors that enable these SME's to successfully conduct business transactions overseas as well as in a highly competitive local market is its embracement of IT. Taking it a notch further up, the SME-ization of the Cloud; SME's carrying out business processes and transactions on the Cloud, allow those SME's to have a sharp competitive edge over its rivals that are hesitant to rely on IT systems for their business processes.

Cloud based business applications such as ZoomBA Cloud (shameless plug since I’m involved), Salesforce, Google Apps and others take away the headache of maintaining Apps for SMEs. 

ZoomBACloud, offers a CRM and Accounting Apps and we hope to introduce a third soon. As we go along we will introduce other apps that will basically cover almost everything an SME will need to compete in a growing cyber-market. The plus point is that since all these apps are from the same service, they are integrated into the same shell and thus the user can effortlessly switch between them.

You can learn more about ZoomBA Cloud by visiting the site. Have a nice day or night and keep in touch via feedback and comments.