Business in Berkshire - New Technology: an SME Manager’s Guide to the Next 12 Months

For business managers, technology can often seem like a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can greatly improve efficiency and even open up new markets.

But the downside is that there is constant change, particularly when it comes to IT, telecommunications and the internet – and as we all know, like it or not, ‘change’ costs money. But a little advance warning of new developments can often help companies avoid a lot of wasted time, and even save them some cash. So here at BinB we thought now was a great time to see what shiny new technologies are likely to affect smaller businesses over the next twelve months or so. That meant sending our tech-savvy reporter Peter Jump off to talk to a selection of the many cutting edge technology companies based in west Berkshire. And once he’d got past all the scary three-letter acronyms, what he discovered will certainly provide SME managers with food for thought after that month on the beach in Benidorm.

Steamy Windows

When I spoke to Paul Cowie, sales and marketing manager at The Lapworth Consultancy in Newbury, he immediately highlighted developments at Microsoft. These included a new version of Exchange, and the new operating system, Vista, which will replace Windows XP in January (although big corporations will start using it from November). He also pointed out that there would be a new release of Office which would affect “how smaller businesses work internally and how they collaborate with others”.

So does this mean we will all need to spend a fortune on new software in the New Year? “Not necessarily,” was Cowie’s response. “Most businesses will migrate to the new products as they purchase new hardware. Some may, therefore, choose to replenish hardware earlier, but there’ll be no compelling need to do so. However, if anyone is thinking of buying new machines soon they might need to take out software assurance or delay purchasing.”

Joined-up business

Ray Stephens, MD for e-business specialist sema4net in Swindon, saw systems integration becoming increasingly important for smaller businesses over the next year, as they look to maximise efficiency in areas such as stock control. As an example, websites will become connected to companies’ accounts packages, thereby helping eliminate the still-too-common need within SMEs to manually raise invoices. “All e-commerce now needs that level of integration,” he commented.

The MD of Swindon-based IT consultancy Check-Tek, Evan James, also saw the humble accounts package as a source of change for businesses. “Account systems are now well established, and the direction that this area is going in is business intelligence. Information is locked away in the accounts and managers need the ability to mine it and thereby spot trends in their business before it’s too late to react to them.”

Getting the message

Like Paul Cowie, sales director Tim Lewis at IT solutions provider Artemis in Kingsclere, near Newbury, also brought up developments at the mighty Microsoft Corporation. He commented that the introduction of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 will enable businesses to develop their own ‘composite’ applications. What this means in practise is better integration between the various parts of the business. And an immediate benefit of that will be better records management so that managers can always quickly find the information they need, be it in a contract, a personnel file or wherever.

Lewis also highlighted Microsoft’s plans for unified communications (UC). This would see businesses using a single system for all their communications, including email, fax, instant messaging, voice, video and conferencing. UC should save companies money and, by streamlining the way people work, boost efficiency. Or as Lewis put it: “Companies will need to adopt at least some of this technology to stay competitive.” With both SharePoint and UC, technology that used to be the preserve of big spending corporations will soon be made available to the humble SME.

Finally, I spoke to Jean-Noel Ezingeard, professor of processes and systems management at Henley Management College. Looking longer term, he saw an increasing legal requirement for businesses to keep more records and for a longer period of time as very significant. “Managers need to plan for increased spending on data storage – and also ways to retrieve the stored information,” he said. So even if the big tech corporations don’t succeed in getting you to spend more on business technology, chances are the various regulatory authorities will – because there’s no escaping the dreaded red tape!

Artemis Corporation: www.artemiscorp.com
The Lapworth Consultancy www.tlc-ltd.com
Sema4net: www.sema4net.co.uk
Check-Tek: www.check-tek.co.uk
Henley Management College: www.henleymc.ac.uk

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[ SME Manager's Guide to New Technology ]