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South Africa: Hi-Tech Edge for Small Business
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
25 July 2008
Posted to the web 25 July 2008
Lesley Stones
Johannesburg
SMALL businesses that want to get ahead can forget about wasting their money on office space, flashy furniture or fax machines.
What they need is a cellphone, a laptop and wireless internet access. That unsurprising finding comes from research for BlackBerry developers Research in Motion.
Slightly less predictable was a finding that 62% of small business owners won new deals because they had a smart phone with them on the road, and could access information and respond instantly to customers.
The survey covered 900 small businesses in Europe, and the results are equally applicable to SA, believes Deon Liebenberg, director of Research in Motion in sub-Saharan Africa.
New technology made it easier to set up a businesses thanks to the ability to work from home or on the road. "The ability to stay in touch contributes significantly to surviving their first year. That's the most critical portion of setting up a business," Liebenberg said.
The survey found a clear link between mobile technology and business success, as the technologies allowed entrepreneurs to be flexible and more productive.
A study of 800 small businesses in SA by World Wide Worx confirmed the link between success and technology use. Firms considering themselves highly competitive tended to use smart phones and wireless internet access.
But only about 30% of the respondents use smart phones or personal digital assistants. Latest handsets seem to intimidate them. While 63% use SMS, only 24% access the internet and 22% access e-mail via their handset.
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That was generally because the handsets or operating systems were just too complicated, said Steven Ambrose of World Wide Worx. "A lot of small businesses don't know how to use things like internet access and e-mail or they are scared of it."
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