06/07/2012

IDG Connect Dan Swinhoe (Middle East)- SMBs (pt II): Opportunities

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Dan Swinhoe (Middle East)- SMBs (pt II): Opportunities

Posted b y Dan Swinhoe Company IDG Connect 07/05/2012

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Following our focus on the challenges small and medium-sized b usinesses face, this week we look at the opportunities presenting themselves to companies across the region. With so many smaller b usinesses in the Middle East, their success is important to the region. Some good news is that SMBS are doing well all across the world. According to Jyoti Lalchandani of IDC, IT spending in the Middle East and Africa is expected rise b y grow 26% until 2015, when they

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will b e spending $91 b illion annually b etween them, compared to $71 b illion currently. He identified the growth driving four trends in the Middle East as "Cloud computing, mob ility, b ig data and social technologies." The Cloud Last year EMC reported strong doub le-digit growth in the region, and expect the same again. Much of this is down to a rise in cloud computing. Its flexib ility, versatility and lost cost, not mention space saving, make it attractive to b usinesses of all sizes. But most importantly it means smaller b usinesses have less constraints put on them on a more level playing field with b igger enterprises. I'm not going to go into the nitty-gritty details of what the cloud is, there are much cleverer people than me paid lots of money to explain what it at great lengths. But with the cloud comes other opportunities. The cloud provides an opportunity to hold more data, and more data turns into b ig data. And with b ig data comes analytics. The more information you know ab out your customers, the more you can take advantage to make decisions. From what you advertise to what the next b usiness step is, analytics are b eing touted as the upshot to the b ig data prob lem. M, E and Social Commerce While E-commerce is firmly estab lished in many parts of the Western world, it's only in the last year that the Middle East has started to catch up. While it's still a relatively niche market, in the last year alone e-commerce has grown b y 300% in the region. That's a staggering rise. While cash-on delivery is still the most common form of payment, using cards and online-payments are on the rise. This b oom is b eing helped b y an increase in home-computers and social media, so making sure your b usiness has a web site and promotes itself on the web is now a necessity instead of an option. Social commerce is a great way to help in your promoting. Getting user-reviews of your products onto sites such as Amazon, connecting with your customers through mediums such as Twitter, and creating your own content to add value to your site all help drive b usiness. A natural extension is M-Commerce. Essentially E-Commerce on the go from mob iles and tab lets, it encompasses b uying through traditional sites, mob ile b anking and more recently, mob ile wallets. Mob ile numb ers are growing fast and many consumers appear to have jumped straight from cash transactions to mob ile payments without ever having used credit or deb it cards. Having a mob ile site/app may cost in the b eginning, b ut the potential returns can b e huge, and getting your b usiness onto various local/hyper-local apps will inevitab ly drive b usiness your way. BYOD Split & Security

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Glob al: The importance of employee privacy in a BYOD workplace http://t.co/zoB5TGYj Middle East: What are the top challenges for SMBs? http://t.co/pVHyKXBi Africa: How #mob ile put b usiness at #Africa's fingertips http://t.co/FQXlT3Cr Asia: How #Singapore is leading b y example in the #IT field http://t.co/o4znnUHp Follow idgconnect on Twitter

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06/07/2012

IDG Connect Dan Swinhoe (Middle East)- SMBs (pt II): Opportunities
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As a side note to mob ility, with the growing trend for smartphones and tab lets helping to drive b udgets upwards, it's worth deciding where you stand on BYOD, or b ring-your-own-device. Spiceworks found that while 20%fully emb race the trend as the future, 35%concede that it works well for some devices, b ut not for others, 25%claim it is a headache for their IT department, and the remaining 20% have not yet formed an opinion. Deciding early what your policy is will help in the long run. Though prob lems with limited access to finance and prohib itive legislation can't really b e solved, the issues the region faces with security also presents an opportunity for companies to step in and take advantage. Whether this is preventing hackers, b locking spam, or providing security solutions for the fledgling mob ile & cloud systems, the opportunity is there for the taking. Meanwhile for b usinesses dealing with the pub lic, especially in the hospitality sector, providing Wi-Fi is b ecoming essential, as a recent poll shows nearly half of people citing it a deal-b reaker in where to stay. The opportunities are definitely there for SMBs; the cloud and E/M-commerce especially. While prob lems with finance and legislation might make adopting them difficult, it is well worth the investment. It's just up to the b usinesses to make the first move.

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