Dubai: Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) need to embrace latest technologies available, from office productivity software to cloud-delivered solutions and services, an industry expert said.
Moreover, they must also prepare themselves for the next wave of new technologies, said Haider Salloum, small and medium business director at Microsoft Gulf.
Cloud technology is the “new way” to consume IT. Cloud uses the latest technology and SMEs can leverage on that.
For example, he said that to run an email system, SMEs need a server, software, storage, antivirus and archiving system and put them all together to run an email. This requires a high Capex. Now with cloud, SMEs can consume email as a server. Cloud-based capabilities enable them to go head-to-head with companies of any size by providing a host of powerful, pay-as-you-go capabilities.
Many SMEs access cloud-based services on a variety of devices — tablets and smartphones -which enable employees to “stay connected” on the run.
In a volatile economy we are in today, he said, and added that SMEs need less Capex and use the same tools the big businesses have and depend less on specialised IT people.
“Our challenge is to educate the 160,000 SMEs to make sure that they more and more to cloud. SMEs contribution needs to grow bigger to depend less on oil economy,” he said.
Greater availability of cloud-based solutions and services means that SMEs also have access to an “ever-expanding set of technology tools” that require little upfront investment for experimentation and innovation. Leading SMEs understand the potential that “new technologies hold”.
Salloum said that cloud gives companies of any size access to capabilities and services that previously were available to only the largest enterprises — at a fraction of their historical cost, and expects the IT adoption among SMEs to reach close to 50 per cent from the current 21 per cent in 24 months.
