With the evolution and streamlining of digital services offered by cloud computing platforms like Microsoft 365, Aussie SMBs that have made the move are reaping the rewards.

A recent report from ANZ titled The Digital Economy: Transforming Australian Businesses has performed an extensive study, speaking to more than 1,000 SMBs around the country to share data around the results of their unique journey to the digital and how it has benefited.

In this blog, we cover the three main takeaways of the report – which are also the three big reasons why SMBs who haven’t already made the move should be going digital in 2020 – and help you understand exactly how and why embracing digital is vital for future success.

ANZ Digital Economy Report Save Time with Digital

Reason #1 – Digital transformation is saving Australian SMBs more time and revenue than you may think

Time and money are a universal challenge for all businesses when it comes to funding and implementing digital solutions in a largely traditional workplace.

We get it – if time is precious or the budget doesn’t align, it can be difficult to get any real move towards going digital .

If you thought your cost concerns surrounding digital were unique, don’t be alarmed – cost has been a consistent pain-point for 26% of Australian SMBs. While most employees are tech-savvy these days, 10% of SMBs surveyed also indicated challenges surrounding staff computer literacy and the cost of retraining as big problems. The most common reasons SMBs are historically more cautious on going digital is due to:

  • Being unable to see return on investment (ROI)
  • Challenges around the implementation phase
  • Confusion on where to start for both decision-makers and users
  • Lack of internal expertise to choose the best options that will scale and remain profitable and relevant to customers in the long-term

However, even with these barriers and concerns, the numbers don’t lie when it comes to the time and money saved for SMBs that have already embarked on their digital journey.

Data driven business decisions

Reason #2 – Going digital has helps businesses make better decisions with ready analytics

The ANZ report notes small and medium sized businesses in Australia are fast extracting value from the substantial toolsets digital has to offer, like automation, cloud, customer analytics, cyber security and collaboration tools.

Analytics in particular is one of the biggest benefits of digital that tends to get overlooked among SMBs; it provides the business with accessible, accurate and up-to-date data around our customers, our sales performance, our record keeping, and much more.

We commonly come across businesses continuing to make do with outdated methods of reporting, such as manual reporting using spreadsheets (which are highly time consuming, with outdated information and lack of accessibility among business stakeholders).

By going digital, you can use your data to make better business decisions by:

  1. Combining your data across multiple applications or data sets to create a ‘whole of business’ view
  2. Using real-time reporting that’s readily accessible in the cloud
  3. Leveraging AI and predictive analytics to go beyond the obvious and gain deeper insights

If you’re truly serious about increasing insights and make better business decisions based on more available, accurate data, going digital has already proven to help SMBs overhaul their analytics the same as enterprises – while saving more time and money than traditional tools.

Reason #3 – Australian SMBs are using digital tools to augment their culture and customer experience

Small and medium sized businesses that are digitally advanced are “already experiencing a significant return on digital investments including uplifts to both productivity and revenue,” according to ANZ’s report.

These businesses, empowered by their move towards all-digital tools in the workplace, have increased opportunities to realise growth opportunities and fuels an internal culture that fosters collaboration and keeps people connected. This is especially important as more staff are working remotely than ever.

Over 37% of SMBs surveyed cited improving their customer service as a key driver to adopt digital tools – and those that have made the jump to digital are also doing so to help increase business efficiency (41%) and grow their customer base (37%).

Used efficiently, digital can make life easier for your employees and improve your customer’s experience with your products and services. Though, it needs to be aligned with strategy and the end-customer’s needs in order to be effective.

Would you like to find out how going digital can benefit your business? Leave your details below and let’s chat over coffee.

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