The consulting firm Connecting Visions, owned by Banco Santander, has analyzed what the main concerns of Spanish SMEs have been last year. In this sense, it emphasizes that it is precisely the projects that have as their objective grow and retain the most demanded customers, representing 57.1% of the total proposals received.
This field exceeds in interest, by far, other areas such as “Cost reduction and improvements” (22% of the total), the “People Management” (13%) and the “Financial area” (7.1%).
“Unlike other crises in which companies opted for cost reduction, in this one SMEs have realized that they cannot continue with the traditional model and new models and channels are proposed that place the customer at the center of the business to get to know him well and know how to please him“, Explain sofia medem, founder and co-CEO of Connecting Visions.
Medem underlines that the typology of projects that SMEs are demanding the most coincides with the areas of digital transformation included in the recently presented Digital Kit grant program, which seeks to promote the implementation of digital solutions with the aim of achieving greater digital maturity on the part of the Spanish business fabric.
If the focus is more focused on these four large areas, 10 great types of projects of business transformation that stand out from the rest when it comes to arousing the interest or commitment of the businesses themselves.
Types of SME projects
The first has to do with the design of products, services and new business models and also includes challenges related to research and customer knowledge and its subsequent application. to enhance your experience. “It is already a reality that the Spanish business fabric is empowering the client and it is he who guides their next steps. To know how the customer really acts, business intelligence and analytics is increasingly important”explains Sofía Medem.
This typology of projects is followed by those related to customer management tools (CRM), in which technology makes it possible to centralize all the information, improve the way of communicating with them and personalize the attention given to them.
The third and fourth typologies reflected in the analysis include projects for attract customers in different fields. On the one hand, digitizing the company with the development of new sales channels such as Digital Marketing and Network Marketing or launching an Ecommerce. On the other hand, improving the capabilities of traditional sales teams with new strategies and commercial tools.
In fifth and sixth place are the projects of Strategy and Finance, respectively. “We have seen that many companies are demanding business plans to define the company’s strategy, make financial projections and even carry out a valuation of it. These companies later decide to have a senior expert to help them keep their finances in order and make their finances profitable with the figure of a part-time financial director”, explains the co-CEO of the consultancy.
In seventh place we find purely technological projects, those related to systems or tool implementations. These would be projects related to the improvement of processes with tools like ERP.
The last three places in the table are occupied, in this order, by the Equality Plans, everything related to technological innovation, especially process robotization projects, and inorganic growth projects focused on establishing alliances or merging with other companies.
