How SMEs can build a powerful digital toolkit

It has become part of modern business credo that to build a great company you have to use the right tech. The recent turbulent economy has done nothing to dispel that.

“Forward-looking businesses aren’t afraid of adopting new technologies,” notes HSBC UK’s Head of Strategic Growth, Partnership & Innovation, Will Turner. “From our data, we can see that high growth-oriented companies see tech as a key tool to enable their growth.”

But with so much software available, how should you separate the signal from the noise? And what’s the smartest way to think about how your business approaches its tech?

Here, three experienced leaders each offer their two highest-value tips...

Manchester-headquartered delivery experience platform Sorted was founded by David Grimes in 2010, and currently employs over 60 people in the UK. It specialises in carrier management, post-purchase experience, and returns. In 2021, Carmen Carey took over as CEO. Here’s what she has learned...

Avoid technologies in search of problems

In the face of persuasive marketing and industry hype, it can be tempting to adopt the new hot thing without a clear business case. Today, many tools are cloud-based, ‘as-a-service’ products, which means the barriers to doing this are especially low.

If the cost is minimal, this might sometimes be a worthwhile experiment, but as a general rule, only adopt tools that serve a clear purpose. They must solve a real problem and deliver clear, measurable advantages. Sorted has a range of tools that it uses internally to manage projects, collaborate, and be productive. The company has found there's one further criterion to stay mindful of while assembling that toolkit: Choosing apps that can talk to each other. For example, integrated notifications that run across a suite of products used to manage software development life-cycles have helped to free up employee time. “If a tool can alert engineering about something and also inform the wider organisation, that just saves steps, right?” says Carey. “Then everyone’s able to focus on the outcome they need to deliver.”

Startups thrive on being nimble. Your tech needs to be the same. Not only should you avoid locking yourself into lengthy contracts—unless you’re completely confident that’s the right decision—but think about designing systems that can adapt to your needs. If a tool is cloud-based, paid for by subscription, and you can add or subtract users as required, that is a vastly more flexible alternative to on-premises software with rigid licensing agreements.

Carey recommends running a thought experiment: “Think—what’s our three- to five-year plan?” she says. “And what technologies will we need as we scale into that plan? And can I pick something now that will scale with us into the future? So make sure you’re in the moment, but also have that future lens on.”

Federico Charosky is the founder and CEO of Quorum Cyber, which offers cybersecurity expertise to organisations across a wide variety of sectors. Charosky founded the business in Edinburgh in 2016, keen to address what he saw as an opaqueness that ran through the cybersecurity world. Quorum Cyber now helps defend more than 150 clients worldwide. Here’s his advice...

Choose best-in-suite over best-in-breed

There’s a perennial debate in software procurement: should you opt for “best-in-suite” (a collection of tools serving multiple business functions) or “best-in-breed” (individual products serving specific niches)?

When it comes to cybersecurity, argues Charosky, the answer is clear. While there’s a tendency to pick a best-in-breed technology and then figure out how to integrate it into the rest of the ecosystem, this tactic can be inefficient and, worse still, ineffective. And he has put his money where his mouth is, opting for a suite ecosystem to protect Quorum Cyber itself. “We made a very early bet [on a major provider’s new security suite],” he says, “and thankfully, it has paid off.”

The benefit is that it can offer end-to-end protection without the risk of blind spots. “I’d rather have an ecosystem of things that are easily integrated, easily engineered, and talking to each other, so my overheads are much lower in having to figure all that out. And then I can actually get people to work on the outcome,” he says. “Good enough is good enough.”

Some businesses have put AI on their ‘wait and see’ list rather than investing now. Charosky believes that is a mistake. “I think it will be a force multiplier,” he says. “You might not have a fully defined business case for it today, but this could be the thing that will make the absolute difference tomorrow.”

Charosky says that when it comes to software, if there’s a relatively low cost in taking a punt on something that could be transformative, then it’s worth experimenting. He sees generative AI as one of those things. “My piece of wisdom is to take more calculated risks,” he says.

Not only are many off-the-shelf generative AI tools relatively affordable, but they don’t require network effects. That means forward-thinking employees can start deriving value from them even if the company as a whole hasn’t embraced them.

Ross Linnett founded Recite Me in Gateshead in 2009. Its software helps businesses make their websites more accessible to people with learning difficulties, disabilities, and visual impairments. Recite Me now employs over 100 people across the UK, United States and Australia, and its accessibility products are used by millions of people around the world. Here are his key insights...

Recognise the limits of your homespun solutions

When businesses start out, affordability is a priority. That can lead many to build their own tools. This could be as simple as using a spreadsheet for accounts, or, if a company has a large team of developers, quickly crafting a simple solution to address a specific task. At a certain point, however, it’s good to go for a professional option, and when you hit that point, don’t delay.

For example, at the outset, Recite Me worked with its own homegrown customer relationship management system. However, the company quickly needed more sophisticated features than this could provide, and the development time spent maintaining it became problematic. Linnett switched the company onto a popular business operations platform that bundled together marketing, sales, and customer service all in one place. This immediately improved workflow and decision making, more than making up for the cost.

As one might anticipate, the trade-off of implementing such a significant strategic change was that the switching process was not straightforward. So how best to smooth such transitions? Linnett pinpoints three strategies: “These include transparent communication regarding the system's benefits, comprehensive training programs to ensure employees feel comfortable using it, and soliciting feedback to address any concerns or challenges they may encounter.”

Process automation can save countless hours.

One option is to use low-code/no-code apps to string together individual tasks into more elaborate routines. If a customer fills out a web form, say, the system could automatically generate a contract for them to sign, put an alert out on internal communications and enter data into the CRM.

Another option is to use AI-driven tools that can take the pain out of tasks that once required a human. Recite Me has saved a great deal of time with AI transcription tools. Every meeting is recorded automatically in a popular transcription app. This creates a “single source of truth”, without anyone having to take minutes. If an employee wants to know why a decision was taken, or what next actions are required, it’s all documented for posterity.

“As an organisation grows, efficiency can be one attribute that is affected,” says Linnett. “Our approach empowers the team to share information, save time, streamline communications and—most importantly—conclude with actionable insight to continually drive forward.”

Whatever your approach, though, the benefit should be the same: freeing you up to focus on the strategic goals that will move the business forwards.