Making day-to-day business easier and growing IT infrastructure cost-effectively with integrated, collaborative systems that will meet the needs of a growing business. This was the plea from small to medium enterprises (SMEs) that participated in the ITWeb 2008 business challenges survey.
Conducted online during August and September in preparation for ITWeb`s planned Technology Roadmaps 2007 conference, the survey also revealed SMEs want to implement solutions that work first time round.
Mariette du Plessis, programme director of ITWeb Events, says the cost and management of ICT infrastructure and outsource partners were listed by respondents as their main business challenges for 2008. Also listed were skills shortages, data quality/integrity and reducing the cost of doing business.
When asked how ICT and vendors can help them meet their challenges in 2008, she says respondents listed three criteria. Centralisation of services, integration and collaboration would be the most important contributions from ICT in the year ahead, specifically insofar as programme, portfolio and project management were concerned, from the executive level down to execution level.
Closely linked to this was the ability to implement cost-effective and efficient business processes to enhance customer satisfaction and reduce cost to business, she says.
"System integration was seen as crucial in that SMEs want to have one platform to run all activities of the company, be it VOIP or enterprise solutions, as well as the ability to link various business applications to increase efficiency and visibility," Du Plessis adds.
In addition, the results revealed that collaboration also extended to the ability to provide collaboration platforms between business associates/partners and suppliers/providers and tools for geographically dispersed workgroups.
"The bottom line, it would seem, is a dire need to put together all the vital components of a successfully run IT business on a dynamic and interactive platform for optimal sales and customer service, as well as the administration of activities, without adding extra input points at all steps," says Du Plessis.
With management of data and data quality/integrity being a top concern, she says respondents indicated they lack cost-effective technology solutions to unify input from disparate business sources.
"On the emerging technologies front, embracing Web 2.0 technology as a collaboration tool in the business and on-demand service/pay-as-you-go models for storage, applications and networks were noted as possible ICT solutions," notes Du Plessis.
ICT vendors will be invited to participate in the ITWeb Technology Roadmaps Conference on 31 October to share their respective technology roadmaps and demonstrate to business how their solutions will assist SMEs in meeting their challenges head-on in 2008.
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