Begin with the customers’ problems
Cloud platform urges SMES to be mindful of their customers in going digital
ADDRESSING customers’ needs should be a key consideration as companies embark on their digital transformation.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) head of technologies and chief technology officer for South-east Asia Santanu Dutt notes that while “going digital” requires alterations to a company’s strategy, technology, processes and organisational structure, having the right culture is an important factor that is often overlooked by businesses in this process.
“Digital transformation begins with a culture that places the customer in the centre of attention and iterate promptly to address their needs,” he says.
Santanu relates AWS’ own approach to innovation, which begins with the customer’s problem and leads to the team’s effort to identify the technology that will help solve it.
“Let’s take an example of the video rental services industry. With the advent of the Internet, customers demand movies to be available anywhere, anytime. Netflix capitalises on that demand and radically transformed from an overnight Dvd/blu-ray courier and rental service into a platform which allowed users to stream video on demand,” he explains.
Santanu adds that having a technology partner can help companies digitise. For example, Netflix was able to quickly deploy thousands of servers and storage space to enable its new services by leveraging on AWS.
SMES are waking up to the fact that they, too, have to keep transforming the customer experience and their business to remain competitive.
And while having a lower cost infrastructure is an enabler for transformation, it is typically not the main driver, according to Santanu.
“The main drivers are agility and innovation, and the cloud enables these in a very significant way.
“We’re seeing different rates of uptake by SMES in terms of cloud computing. Most of them are still at the early stages of adopting emerging technologies and thus have not been able to fully reap the benefits for their companies. However, there is an appetite for innovation and experimenting. We see this a lot in startups that have the luxury of being born in the cloud.
“But with 5G set to be coming in the very near future, we foresee that more enterprises and SMES will continue to innovate and take the next step to implementing it into their businesses,” he says.
He also foresees that there will be more use of Internet-of-things (IOT) in the manufacturing sector to make devices smarter either for automation or collection of data. SMES need to start strategically investing in more cloud computing services to migrate and digitalise their business and to automate simple business processes, he adds.
With cloud technology becoming more accessible, Santanu highlights several trends that have emerged among SMES as a result of this. These include more SMES taking advantage of the current conducive environment to scale up seamlessly.
He also notes that there is growing acceptance of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning among SMES pushing their digital transformation. Additionally, with the increase in market volatility, SMES across sectors are turning to data-driven analytics and insights to make fact-based decisions.
But businesses need to understand that digitalisation is not a one-off investment or project. It is a long-term innovation to drive new business propositions and user experiences, says Santanu.
“They should look at taking the building blocks offered by cloud providers and assemble them in ways to create new platforms, products and services that enhance their operations and provide them with launching pads for new business strategies.”
Santanu notes that research has shown that digital adoption, especially among SMES, barely touches 20%, and most manufacturing companies apply less than 50% of automation.
Some of the challenges cited include a lack of awareness in terms of the benefits of keeping up with new technologies and most are unwilling to make the investment because they don’t see an immediate return.
“We believe that the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Miti) efforts in encouraging SMES in the manufacturing sector to sign up for the National Policy on Industry 4.0 Readiness Assessment is a good start. Through this programme, SMES will be able to know where they stand and how they are able to move towards automation.
“Additionally, we believe that there should be more collaboration between the private and public sectors as we have the expertise to help SMES to propel forward,” he says.
One of the main challenges that SMES face in adopting new technologies, though, is the lack of talent that are able to use these technologies. They will need to invest in upskilling their employees.
“However, SMES don’t have to hire highly specialised workers. The value proposition of AWS is that our services are made to be easy to use. We want to democratise technologies such as IOT, big data and analytics, AI and machine learning so that every customer can leverage the benefits of these,” he adds.