Hybrid products key to our SMB approach

Darren Phelps explains Lenovo's tack on SMB sales in a tough economic climate

At the beginning of the year, the government noted that today’s small businesses are tomorrow’s big businesses. Innovative SMBs, which can introduce products and services quickly to meet changing market demands, have the power to stimulate economic recovery and drive business growth.

They have the flexibility to rapidly expand into new geographies or target new demographics. They are well placed to succeed in a tough economic climate, although obviously they need to ensure they have tools that can support their growth.

Adopting technology will be crucial in helping SMBs get ahead. Mobile technologies, which can enable flexible working and rapid expansion, are proving particularly important. This all makes for fertile, though challenging, ground for channel partners.

For resellers looking for new streams of revenue, the SMB market is an obvious hunting ground. But selling to SMBs is not straightforward, as competition between technology providers is still fierce. The need to stand out from the crowd has never been more important.

Furthermore, it cannot be forgotten that, like all businesses, SMBs are operating in a recession. Their technology spend must not prevent them operating an efficient, lean business – and resellers need to ensure the products and services they sell them can provide fast return on investment.

On top of this comes the need for resellers to engage with new groups of customers. IT expenditure is fast becoming a strategic business decision for SMBs, with CEOs taking ownership of decision making, instead of the IT manager. Most IT purchases should be aligned to a customer’s wider business priorities, and many resellers still need to realign their sales strategies to meet their customers’ C-level objectives.

If SMBs are looking at the most cost-effective and easiest ways to buy the technology required to drive growth, what are they actually buying?

The need to cut costs is fuelling the adoption of services such as cloud computing, including IaaS and online business applications. SMBs are also embracing BYOD policies, getting employees to use their own laptops and phones for business use – potentially saving money.

If this is coming at the expense of more traditional hardware and software purchases, should the channel focus its efforts solely in these areas?

SMBs will always need to buy physical computing products that can support their operations. Even cloud services require adequate infrastructure to support them. Companies therefore must spend on a range of technologies.

The trick for resellers is to offer hybrid products that can meet a range of needs and serve a variety of different users within an organisation while saving money and minimising the need to buy multiple products to do a similar job.

By ‘hybrid’ I mean devices such as laptops, tablets and PCs that can address multiple needs and mirror the agility of the SMBs themselves.

Such devices can help employees at all levels work in a flexible way. For instance, a chief executive never stays in one place for long yet needs to oversee the business at all times – perhaps accessing, creating and sharing files and documents securely while on the move. If the device used can double as a personal device as well, so much the better.

Hybrid products can also help companies address BYOD problems – switching from PC to tablet work modes can mitigate the need for employees to carry multiple devices. Light enough to move from one place to another with ease, but also robust enough to carry out more complex tasks, some tablets are proving popular with many staff, including decision makers.

The UK economy as a whole will benefit if SMBs have the latest technologies to help them grow. As these companies attempt to compete with the large IT budgets of their enterprise counterparts, they should have cost-effective and robust products that fit the most flexible of workforces.

The market is crowded, but still highly lucrative – and the most innovative offerings have an advantage.

Darren Phelps is SMB, mid-market and channel director at Lenovo