For small to medium sized business (SMB) owners, growth is essential within the first year of operating, especially given that reports show about 18% of small businesses will fail within a year of opening. It is essential to quickly understand what works and does not work for your business, so in order to keep up with the competition, many SMBs are turning to adopting innovative technology that can improve workflows and productivity.
Currently, 43% of small business owners are exploring new technologies to increase productivity and efficiency, according to a report from Slack. With this in mind, VMblog spoke with AG Zheng, Lenovo‘s Executive Director of Global SMB Segment to discuss the critical role of tech for small business success as well as key tips and best practices to push their business to the next level of growth.
VMblog: What tips or best practices can you share with SMB owners who want to scale their business and improve productivity?
AG Zheng: When running a business, it can feel as if there are a million and one items to take care of. With so much going on, it can detract from focusing on the items that will help you grow your business. One major tip I suggest to improve productivity is not only investing in the right tech, but staying on top of tech trends; one of the biggest tech trends right now that comes to mind is AI. According to a recent survey, more than 90% of small business owners say using AI has made their companies more successful. In fact, Lenovo‘s third annual global CIO report shows CIOs expect AI technology to lead to productivity (83%), increased competitiveness (77%) and enhanced business practices (57%) – key benefits for SMBs.
With this in mind, it’s crucial for SMBs to start immersing themselves in emerging technology like AI-powered generative use cases, which can serve as idea generators for content creation, writing tasks and marketing strategies. Hybrid AI, which is the co-existence of public, personal and enterprise AI to supplement and enhance each other, is creating significant growth opportunities. Embedding personal AI models into AI PC devices can help enable employees to simplify routine tasks such as email summaries, meeting notes, and data vetting leading to freeing up time to focus on other areas of the business. Having the right laptops, monitors and collaboration tools can boost your team’s overall productivity and drive success across your business.
Some other tips SMBs should keep in mind are leveraging data for personalized services and using social media to your advantage, which I will dive into shortly.
VMblog: Why is investing in the right technology important for SMBs?
Zheng: Investing in the right technology is very important for SMBs. Having the most relevant technology for your business can not only save you time but money. A study from IBM states 54% of organizations using AI reported seeing cost savings and efficiencies, noting it as the top benefit seen within businesses involved in the study. Additionally, 46% of employees were freed to focus on higher value tasks and 39% found this mitigated labor and skills shortages. For business owners, countless hours are spent doing routine tasks that can be optimize through the use of a secure personal intelligent agent using natural language processing and a personalized AI model.
Business is increasingly conducted via online meetings rather than in person, however, when important calls are interrupted by unexpected background noise, a conversation can be diverted off track. SMB owners can avoid this disruption and keep streamlining productivity by using laptops equipped with AI powered meeting features that can enhance audio and video, ensuring that no barking dogs or loud vehicles (or people) will interfere with important work and only the user is seen. The AI tools can also offer transcripts and meeting analysis to maximize efficiency and reduce “conference call fatigue”.
For SMB workers on the go, flexibility and mobility is key. Having adaptable technology to meet the demands of a hybrid world ensures that SMBs are always ready to take on any task in any given workplace environment without having to carry multiple devices.
VMblog: How can SMBs harness tech to improve efficiency and increase the speed of their work from creative pursuits to admin tasks and everything in between?
Zheng: Whether businesses are using AI to perform routine tasks, secure devices or personalize services, SMB owners who leverage this tech can save time and money, allowing them to invest resources into other avenues for growth. For SMBs that are currently using AI in their workflows, AI PCs are essential to maximize efficiency and productivity. In the coming years, as AI becomes more prevalent across all industries, AI PCs will become the gold-standard for optimal performance, regardless of the type of business. As a greater number of applications that harness the power of AI become more accessible to SMBs, AI PCs will be crucial to take advantage of this new technology.
VMblog: How can you leverage data to personalize services and grow your SMB?
Zheng: Use CRM systems and zero-party data collection platforms to better understand customer needs and optimize your services to better support your customers. According to the Zero-Party Data Revolution report from Attest, consumers prefer using a brand’s website (57%) if zero-party collection was used. Nearly half (47%) of respondents say interactive surveys are the best way for a brand to capture their data, while 27% like online forms.
For growing SMBs, the consumer experience should be a priority. After all, there is no business without customers. In addition to zero-party data, AI-enabled personalization can enrich the customer experience and lead to a greater rate of returning customers.
One example of customer-facing AI personalization is the use of AI chatbots that can be customized to the business and customer needs. Beyond the consumer context, these chatbots can be a valuable business tool, as they can be used to provide customers with resources 24/7, adding convenience for those seeking quick answers to common questions related to your product or service.
As a business continues to grow, it is also highly beneficial to implement AI-driven predictive analytics. Predictive analytics solutions can streamline a wide variety of IT operations such as optimizing uptime, analyzing and resolving performance issues, and predicting application failures. State of the art predictive AI continually learns and becomes more adept at detecting problems in your specific environment, allowing you to allocate IT resources to more strategic tasks. By using analytics in this way, you can increase productivity throughout the entire organization by minimizing downtime and predicting errors before they occur.
VMblog: Any final thoughts to provide our readers on how to make it as an SMB in 2024?
Zheng: Another key tip I’d also like to call out is the importance of growing brand visibility and engagement through creative and strategic social content that aligns with your brand and goals. Recent Typeform data shows 89% of consumers have discovered a small business on social media and 87.5% are highly or somewhat likely to follow a small business they like on social media, underscoring the value of having a presence on social media platforms.
Just like tech and AI, social media is ever evolving as they become ever more interlinked, so it’s important to keep your finger on the pulse for these different areas that can impact your business. It’s clear that AI can touch various aspects of a business, whether it’s investing in AI PCs that offer personal agent solutions or using AI to automate tasks such as customer insight analysis, AI frees up valuable time and resources that SMB owners can invest elsewhere.
Overall, AI can be a powerful tool to save time and money for SMB owners when used to its fullest capabilities. With these great AI advancements and investing in the right tech, business owners can leverage practical innovation to fully equip their teams with the solutions and devices they need to produce their best work and push their business to the next level of growth.
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