Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are one of the pillars of the Mexican economy. These companies generate 70% of jobs and contribute just over half of the Gross Domestic Product. However, challenges such as the lack of definition of responsibilities, the inability to generate allies and access to financial resources, are among the main causes of their failures, according to the Failure Institute.
These challenges are more evident when SMEs embark on their digital transformation processes, which is why I think it is important to bring to the conversation three fundamental actions that I believe should be incorporated from now on to make their path to digitalization more efficient and easier.
collaborative culture
To advance and strengthen the digital transformation, it is necessary for people who collaborate in various areas to be able to cooperate with each other. According to a study developed by Google and Kantar, companies that are digitally mature have shown greater collaboration between those responsible for the areas of finance and marketing.
Digital tools exist to help companies of all sizes, including small and medium-sized ones, to achieve their goals in an agile way. In order for this to be possible, it is also necessary to ensure that those who collaborate in the company know and understand the business objectives, which implies factors such as planning, work team formation, budgeting, everyone’s involvement in technological aspects, among others. Adopting agile work methodologies will help to carry out these tasks.
Flexible budgets
Faced with economic uncertainty, consumers, their behavior and needs are constantly changing, so it is important for SMEs to adapt to these changes. By having flexible budgets that can be quickly adapted to customer behavior, it will be easier to respond quickly.
In addition, having a flexible budget will allow the corresponding areas to carry out small, low-cost experiments that test the insights that they have about consumers and generate strategies from them, which will enable the departments of marketing test in new ways and through new channels if the strategy works and then yes, impact the entire business.
Strategic allies
Having strategic allies who share your goals will ease the way. To delve into this point, I want to take the example of SMEs in Mexico. According to the Bank of Mexico, the participation of credit to these companies within the financing was 9.6%, below other sectors, such as consumption, housing or credit to large companies. The lack of economic resources impacts them in economic, productive and growth inequality, reducing progress in their digital transformation.
Aware that having strategic allies is key to achieving our objective of reducing the gap in financial inclusion and digital transformation of businesses, we have allied ourselves with different fintechs, such as Clara, Covalto, Jeeves, Konfio, Mendel and Tribal to offer loans and financial benefits to small and medium businesses in Mexico. Union make force.
We are sure that a collaborative and flexible organizational structure, together with strategic allies, will be the resources that allow small and medium-sized companies to strengthen and maintain their digital transformation.
