How Unified Communications Can Create Growth Opportunities For SMEs

Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) play a pivotal role in the socio-economic growth of India, both in terms of contribution to GDP and employment generation. Besides adding volume to the country’s industrial output and fostering entrepreneurship, they also account for almost 40% of the total exports in India. Industry statistics reveal that the SME sector provides employment opportunities to 60 million people and creates 1.3 million new jobs every year.

These businesses are the ‘growth engine of Indian economy’, yet they find it increasingly difficult to stay afloat. Limited credit access, regulatory hurdles, and lack of affordable marketing avenues – all of these factors hinder their growth. The situation became challenging due to lack of access to capital and other economic headwinds.

Effective Communication Leads To Better Business Outcomes For SMEs

Considering the myriad of challenges, it’s critical that they have the monetary, technical and infrastructural support. One important aspect that is often overlooked is the technology systems and how they are used. In today’s competitive environment, SMEs require a robust communications platform that enables them to seamlessly collaborate with all the stakeholders despite geographical barriers. Such a platform help small organizations to communicate with their employees, partner vendors, customers, investors and the larger ecosystem, across locations in a quick cost-effective manner.

Modern Times Call For Modern Solutions

Today’s communication platforms help improve operational efficiency, resource utilization, response time, and customer engagement. With advanced technologies like AI, machine learning, cloud computing and IoT, a dynamic communication system can provide 360-degree business integration, with localized management of systems at different offices. SMEs are therefore turning to unified communications (UC) for a competitive advantage.

Why SMEs Should Consider Unified Communications?

In simplified terms, UC refers to the integration of internal and external workplace communication tools. This is achieved by reducing the number of devices/interfaces used for communicating during the business day. Solutions could range from simple video conferencing tools to more complex AI-based chatbots or messaging platforms. Many UC systems provide a single interface that can be used across multiple devices to send and receive information, thereby facilitating better communication while mitigating the operational cost.

Once restricted to only enterprises, unified communications now present unbridled opportunities to SMEs. They can effectively communicate and achieve desired outcomes through instant collaboration and seamless integration of messaging, telephone calls and emails. Some of the key benefits of a UC platform for small businesses include making the process of remote working easier, better responsiveness to market trends, higher agility, and enhanced customer service.

With increased cognizance of the benefits offered by UC systems, the SME sector is fast adopting this technology. They need solutions that are easy to understand and use.  Companies of all sizes are on a quest to find the best communication strategies in the modern business environment. For some businesses, this means accessing collaborative tools that offer instant chat, video conferencing, and file sharing. For other businesses, it means hosting engaging webinars and presentations for employees and customers alike. However, better-unified communications platforms provide a range of tools for organisations to align and unify their communication strategies.

As a company, we are committed to finding the best ways for organisations to get more work done in a fast-paced and in a dynamic work environment. We provide the tools that businesses need to collaborate in real-time, regardless of where their employees might be. There’s no need for any specialist software or hardware to access a conference via our products as the solution is delivered over the cloud and all you need to do is to provide attendees with a customised URL to get started.

In recent years organisations in India have therefore found that unified communications tools are becoming crucial to productivity and developing relationships with customers, suppliers and a global workforce. With organisations now adopting more collaboration tools, there is little doubt that barriers will be broken down further to allow for smarter working techniques to be established by SMEs to give them the advantages enjoyed by their larger corporate peers, improving their chances for business success in India.