Here’s How Digitisation Is Putting MSMEs On The Fast Track

In a recent conversation with Arun Kumar Parameswaran, SVP & MD, Sales and Distribution at Salesforce, I talked about the importance of digitisation in business and how it can help MSMEs. I believe it is a crucial conversation to have now, especially since the barriers to embracing digitisation are the lowest in decades. This can help accelerate MSME growth in an already-conducive business environment.

While digitisation in business is equated with enhancing efficiency and profitability for larger corporations, in MSMEs, it plays an even more critical role – and could even be essential for our survival. MSMEs face certain difficulties that larger businesses don’t, even though they require the same tools and services to compete. These include lack of sufficient resources, shortage of internal skills and knowledge, and tighter budgets. Plus, many MSMEs are comparatively young enterprises, which makes them unable to compete with established market companies in terms of financial access. Customers could also perceive that it risky to engage with small firms.

Digitisation can help MSMEs overcome many of these hurdles, by enabling them to build trust, and optimise their work environment, employee experience and customer experience. How, then, does digitisation support the growth of smaller companies?

How MSMEs can benefit from embracing digitisation

1. Digitisation enables real-time access to updated data for smarter sales

Ever-busy teams such as sales, marketing and product development might not always have the time to share documented data with other teams. Take the case of Gemini Power Hydraulics itself. They were initially using a homegrown CRM. This CRM system was only partially cloud-based. So, our sales teams could not get updated details about our products – including price, version, and availability – when visiting customers. Plus, they lacked a system for recording customer interactions while on the move. As a result, all the information needed for fast decision-making was not always available.

After deploying Salesforce Sales Cloud, we were able to create a single source of truth for the sales pipeline. With Sales Cloud, our reps now have a complete view of every customer, including their activity history, important contacts, communications with them, and internal account discussions. This enables our reps to access real-time, updated information on every customer, including likeliness of a lead to convert or criticality of a consumer demand. Additionally, it has become possible to map potential solutions to client profiles, leading to quicker, targeted recommendations. All this intelligence enables the sales team to make the most of each customer engagement.

2. Digitisation enables better cross-functional collaboration for faster and seamless responses

Traditional, paper-based methods of communication can result in important messages being missed, lack of coordination with teams on the field, and the absence of a legitimate record of discussions. For instance, siloed communication between the sales, marketing, and manufacturing departments can result in delivery delays for goods or services. By using digital communication solutions, employees can:

• Reduce the time and effort needed (For eg, using video conferencing to communicate with the salesperson on the field)
• Manage content and other digital assets
• Document their learnings for others

This helps increase productivity, smoothens business operations and lets the MSME operate as a single unit.

3. Digitisation equips MSMEs with a customer-360 view to serve their customers better

With the help of digital technology, scattered data can be consolidated to get a 360-degree view of each customer. This granular understanding of customer behaviour helps businesses provide better, customised solutions to customers. This in-depth understanding can also be the key differentiator in a field like customer service.

For instance, Gemini Power Hydraulics used Service Cloud to automate and optimise service processes. Service representatives can quickly and easily view the complete schedule of repairs performed on a customer’s assets. This also helps our reps provide timely assistance or advice to clients whose assets are past the warranty period.

4. Digitisation boosts efficiency, allowing a small team to operate at scale

Digitisation can help automate routine operations and streamline procedures. This lets MSMEs free up their workforce to concentrate on more critical tasks such as deepening customer relationships, adding value to customer discussions, etc.

Additionally, digitisation helps MSMEs cut costs, increase process efficiencies and achieve rapid yet sustainable growth. Gemini Power Hydraulics is a prime example. On deploying Salesforce, we have seen:

• 60% increase in sales productivity
• 25-30% increase in service productivity
• Enhanced ability to offer contextualised service and conversations
• Higher NPS scores

Digitisation is here to stay

It has been reliably proven that MSMEs have greatly benefited from digitisation – gaining new customers and growing relationships with their current customers as well. Clearly, MSME industry leaders must embrace digitisation to make data-driven decisions in any business, including around marketing, pricing, and monitoring overall business performance.

With Salesforce, Gemini Power Hydraulics is now pursuing company-wide digitisation to achieve even stronger business process orientation. It’s time you moved to Salesforce too.