Digital trends for SMBs in 2019

2019 is the year that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will pursue modernisation and take the unavoidable digital transformation far more seriously now that it is closer to becoming more ‘real’ rather than a relatively distant vision. Below are the top three digital trends that will have the biggest impact on SMBs.

1. Better business decisions are driven by data analytics

The use of data analytics has become a great source of service solutions for many businesses as a way of using data to gain a better understanding of consumers. Consumer interests and behaviours can provide valuable data to business and help it improve in more ways than one to gain new customers and keep customers coming back. The use of data analytics can spread to almost every part of a business from production, purchasing, marketing, human resource management and finance.

This year more and more SMBs will evaluate whether data analytics are serving their business. If it is that data analytics is currently serving them and serving them well, they will look for newer and better ways to utilise the data and improve their small business marketing efforts. Most SMBs have been reluctant to use data analytics to serve their business, but in an age of digital transformation, they are most likely to use data and actionable insights.

2. Cloud services pick up for SMBs

In recent years, the ‘cloud’ has been a hot topic trending on the Internet and thrown backwards and forwards in numerous conversations between SMBs and IT experts. Mainstream corporations are heavily invested in cloud services and solutions and they have somewhat led the way for SMBs today. As the cloud continues to be at the forefront of the must-have technology, it is more and more accepted by SMBs and thus many SMBs will adopt the cloud as of 2019.

3. Cloud-hosted security takes hold

Cybersecurity is and has always been a major issue for businesses since the age of the Internet.

According to Cisco “Many small and midmarket businesses aspire to more effective cybersecurity practices just like larger counterparts. SMBs are dynamic – the backbone of innovation and the poster child of hard work. They run even faster and work even harder than enterprise peers. And they are exposed to the same cyber threats.” ~ Cisco Cybersecurity Special Report for SMBs (2018)

With more and more SMBs pursing cloud services, cloud-hosted security will be the number one cloud solution to help protect business data systems against cyber-attacks and threats.

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