Smaller businesses are often reluctant to change something when what they have already seems ‘good enough.’ It can be challenging to see what’s possible with new technology, especially when it comes to the Cloud.
Vitor Cabrera is Microsoft’s Marketing Manager for small to medium enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand. When it comes to investing in technology, skepticism is not uncommon amongst companies without an IT department or dedicated IT funds.
“Small businesses are very conscious of every dollar they spend and the return they are getting. When a business is time-poor and resource-constrained, getting them on board with what technology can do is a big ask. They want to be fully aware of how much they are investing, what they’re getting, and it’s clear benefits.”
New Zealand is also a unique market that doesn’t fit under a “one size fits all” global umbrella. Vitor says that although Kiwi businesses are globally focused, when it comes to best practices, Kiwi business owners want to hear about the New Zealand market from Kiwis themselves.
When reaching global customers is more accessible for Kiwi businesses than ever, there’s an even bigger opportunity to help SME’s grow and scale with technology.
The opportunity for Kiwi businesses to do more with technology is the foundational message behind the new e-book, Insights to Impact.
“We want to help businesses do better by growing, by reducing costs, by being more efficient, and by helping the community. It doesn’t mean just better products or services but doing better for a specific group of people or a community.”
What better way to showcase how far a Kiwi company can go with simple tech solutions than talking to Kiwi founders and business managers themselves? Because big or small, every business starts the same.
“We believe that every business starts with a vision, whether it’s a service or an experience or making the world a better place. Whatever it is, there’s a mission.”
In the new e-book, Kiwis tell their stories on the path to growth, complete with trials and tribulations. What readers will find is that many challenges are shared, regardless of industry.
“Any business that is starting to grow will face challenges with infrastructure. Where they will host their files and how they will share those files with others. It starts to create a challenge the moment you start having devices, computers, and IT servers. You have to do maintenance and at some point, you’ll need to upgrade. You start thinking about all these problems that come on the back of using technology.”
With so many things to think about as a small business owner, time is often taken away from high-value work that is required of a company’s mission. Vitor says the mission is what a business should be set up to achieve. Technology comes in later to solve how you do it. This is where a cloud-based platform can help.
“It’s a toolbox for businesses to create, fix or improve certain processes. You first need to understand the challenges, what you want to achieve, and what your business is set up to do. Technology will help you with the ‘how’. How can you do something faster or cheaper? How can you automate low-value activities that are repetitive to reduce your costs? How can you get your team to spend more time in high-value activities that will help grow your business?”
Freeing up time for high-value activities is what Microsoft is hoping to help SME’s around New Zealand achieve. To learn how Kiwi businesses did this themselves, leveraging technology to unlock new opportunities, check out the new Insights to Impact e-book.
Building better businesses: you can hear some of these digital transformation stories live at the upcoming Microsoft Business for Better event that will take place in Auckland on the 11th of March 2020. This is a free event for kiwi businesses to come together and learn from their peers and Microsoft specialists how technology can take your business to the next level.