Denpasar, Bali, INDONESIA — Oct. 5, 2013 —
Tech-savvy small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) created more new
jobs and drove more revenue gains over the past three years than SMEs
using little technology, according to new research commissioned by
Microsoft Corp. and independently conducted by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a global management consulting firm and a leading adviser on business strategy.
Successful Tech-Savvy SMEs
October 04, 2013
How Microsoft enables their productivity and growth
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The BCG report, Ahead of the Curve: Lessons on Technology and Growth
From Small Business Leaders, which is being published Saturday, found
there is potential for SME revenue to grow by a combined $770 billion in
the five primary countries if more SMEs could achieve the growth rates
of those SMEs that use modern IT. These same SMEs
could add some 6.2 million new jobs in those countries alone. What’s
more, BCG believes that this association between IT adoption and growth
would be consistent in countries across the world.
“SMEs are a critical growth engine for jobs and economies today, and
we wanted to better understand the impact of technology on these small
businesses,” said Orlando Ayala, corporate vice president and Microsoft
chairman of Emerging Markets. “Since the economic crisis, many economies
have struggled to return to strong economic growth and to create new
jobs, and this research suggests strongly that greater use of advanced
IT by SMEs can potentially boost both growth and employment.”
BCG’s research found that over the past three years, IT-enabled SMEs,
which BCG refers to as “technology leaders,” grew revenues 15 percentage
points faster and created twice as many jobs as SMEs that use less
technology. The research also revealed that across nearly all product
categories, these fast-growing SMEs use more Microsoft solutions than
any other products, and that SMEs view Microsoft as the top partner for
new and future technology needs. In fact, when asked what technologies
survey respondents could not live without, they chose Microsoft Office
as the top productivity application over all others. What’s more, SMEs
that adopted Microsoft Cloud services grew faster than SMEs that do not
use any Microsoft products.
“The BCG research revealed that Microsoft products and services are
the No. 1 choice of these technology leaders,” said Vahé Torossian,
Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Worldwide Small and Mid-Market
Solutions and Partners organization. “Microsoft is the brand that small
businesses trust and use to power their growth.”
The BCG report argued that the latest wave of technological
advancement, such as cloud services, brings potential for the most
far-reaching innovation and business growth ever, creating an
opportunity for more SMEs to achieve the growth rates of technology
leaders by leveraging technology to fuel productivity and growth. The
research revealed that high-performing SMEs stayed ahead of mainstream
IT adoption, riding new waves of advancement to improve productivity,
connect with new customers and markets, particularly outside their own
region or country, and compete with much larger players. These companies
employ the full range of available tools — from productivity software
to Internet connectivity and cloud-based services.
But at the same time, the research revealed a risk, because SMEs’
adoption of IT is decidedly uneven. Across the world, many SMEs, and
their customers, don’t have access to modern broadband networks, and
many lack the skills to get the most out of IT. Many SMEs are also still
using large amounts of old and less efficient hardware and software.
New devices are also sometimes very expensive due to high import duties,
and SMEs are concerned about online security and privacy. But the
growth prospects described in the study are too important for
governments and the IT industry to ignore.
The risk of a growing technology gulf is relevant to governments
looking to maximize economic growth, and it is an opportunity for
policy-makers and the IT industry to implement strategies to remove
barriers to IT adoption by addressing small businesses’ top concerns
about using more technology.
“Our objective is to help more SMEs transition to, and benefit from,
modern IT,” Torossian said. “For customers, it means providing product
training and helping SMEs understand the full range of available devices
and services, but it also means community investments such as skills
training and partnering with governments and communities to remove the
bigger, systemic barriers that hold SMEs back.”
The results of the BCG survey of more than 4,000 SMEs in five of the
world’s largest and most diverse economies were consistent across all
industry sectors, but there were some surprises from emerging markets
and with women-owned firms. Technology leaders in emerging markets grew
jobs and revenue faster than in developed markets and are even quicker
than their developed market counterparts to embrace new tools, and
women-owned firms are among the most technically advanced, innovative
and successful firms interviewed.
“What we are seeing is that technology can help level the playing
field for groups with historical disadvantages in business, and we would
like to see more SMEs benefit from being technology leaders,” Ayala
said. “Microsoft is committed to enabling people from all over the world
and bridging the gender gap in computing careers with tools and
programs to provide opportunities in the computing field for business
growth and innovation.”
A copy of the report can be downloaded at http://www.bcgperspectives.com.
More about how Microsoft is working with SMEs can be found at
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