Cracking the SMB Code

Authored By: Snehashish Bhattacharjee, Global CEO- Denave

Indian economy is expected to breach the $5 trillion mark by the year 2025? Very positive news indeed. The question is which economic faction will play an important role in influencing the change? I would put my weight behind SMBs (considering the size and potential) and I am sure many would agree.

From the family-owned Photocopy shops to smart tech innovators, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) comes in all form and dimensions. Where few of them operate out of their home or dorm room, others hire 200 workers in a factory. Furthermore, few of them leverage the latest technologies and others run their businesses on spreadsheets.

Yes OR No – Partnering SMBs

We agree that SMBs acquire some intrinsic benefits owing to their scale. It brings in the advantage of agility, flexibility and adaptability. Their swiftness plays a key role in helping them to move ahead before biggies even think. Also, with the shifting trends across the range of business operations, they are able to easily adapt to the changes.

Moving ahead as the market demands new innovation and flexibility, SMBs will be quicker to meet those demands by providing new products and services which can be tough for big players to innovate or adapt to quickly.

This is the gap that large enterprises try to fill in. It is no secret that large enterprises are seeking to invest and partner with SMBs that they feel can bring in those much-desired elements of flexibility, agility and adaptability.  Although the relationship sounds convincing, yet the question arises on how to crack the SMB market? Small businesses are more market sensitive and that impacts their accessibility and price value.

Further, more often than not they are proficient in a niche technology or selective technologies only making the giant enterprises to be on constant lookout for widening partnership base. Unlike big organisations, the systems and internal processes of SMBs are also fluid which makes partnership framework tricky and an eternal work in progress. Thus, it makes the customer procurement a fairly costly and unprofitable affair.

The path to the code

The benefits of the partnership or penetrating the SMB market definitely outweigh the prickles. It only requires a robust SMB penetration strategy to be able to cash in their immense potential. Let us deep dive into ways to facilitate successful inroads into the world of SMBs:

Operational Database: An effective database comprising the whitespace relevant to the target group is the foundation of any business strategy. An effective database can be built by data analytics enabled smart data extraction engines and when conjoined with AI, it can help in providing near accurate database of SMBs. This saves a lot of sales time as it renders the list of accurate and relevant prospects.

Categorising Purchase Probability: Armed with a near accurate SMB database, we can leverage data analytics to cull out accurate trend mapping and purchase history mapping. In conjunction with price analytics, we can then gain a deep insight into the target group about its purchase probability. This helps us in moving beyond the static database platforms that deliver low accuracy rate in SMB categorising.

Reinforcing Propensity Model: Once the purchase probability has been determined, it’s time to understand the inclination towards purchase. This can be effectuated. With targeted digital marketing strategies leveraging digital marketing campaigns and marketing analytics. This would help in recognizing purchase tendency of the prospect. This step may also pave the way to undertake potential business interaction with prospective SMBs leading us to our next step.

Propelling Sales Motion: Now is the time to push the sales motion. We know the customer’s probability and propensity for purchase that shall help to implement the right sales execution strategy. Depending upon the necessities, consultative telesales for a greater geographic reach, feet on street approach for an on-ground connect and also a hybrid approach which can be the mix of multiple different approaches can be deployed. It all boils down to how well you can implement the sales motion in order to generate a candid purchase/sales lead.

Tying loose ends: It is very essential to understand the law of interdependence as it sustains the values especially in the realm of business. By successfully enabling the partner ecosystem through a consultative selling approach, the end to end sales closure including after sales services and customer retention tactics should be the eventual agenda. After all, a great partner connects simply opens-up an impressive market outreach potential for the organizations.

Heading in the Right Direction

According to a joint research carried out by KPMG and Google, there are more than 51 million SMBs in India, employing 120 million people countrywide. India’s growing SMB sector accounts for 37% of the country’s GDP. This emphasizes the fact that the SMB sector is a pool filled with potential opportunities.

In order to tap into these opportunities, it is imperative to view the unfolding business landscape and understand the gap areas in terms of business necessities from their perspective. Of course, the job is not easy, but it shall ensure filling those gaps with the right product and services at the right price point.

According to an age-old industry phrase, the bottom line of an ultimate strategy must spell benefit for both- the enterprise and the SMB. Once that is mastered, the Rubic’s cube of SMB penetration is sorted.