BMPA's STB forum looks at IT for SME print firms

Yajnik said, "More than 30% of SMEs, today, do not have their own website and among the rest 70%, most of the websites are designed only for giving information. Today's internet is not just about providing information, it is about generating interaction to bring about collaboration with the audience and potential clients." He felt, the need for SMEs to harness the power of social media. "Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn... - every social networking website has its own set of audience. Using the social web, SMEs can talk about their products, services; engage customers, suppliers; generate leads and even ramp up sales," added Yajnik.

Taking this further, Yajnik underscored the current business reality of SMAC - Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud. He felt that technology when shared is inexpensive and hence SMEs can rent cloud-based services instead of investing in software licences, similarly for data storage. If not for confidential data, using cloud-based data storage services is an effective way to cut costs.

According to Yajnik, the bottleneck that SMEs face today is the resistance to adapt to this new concept of e-business from the senior members of the organisation or down the line employees. The reason, he said, is technophobia and the solution is to train them. "Training is the foremost requirement, when any organisation looks to change the way it works. At first, you need to convince them that e-business will add more value to the business and then train them to adapt to the changes that e-business will bring about," added Yajnik.

Later, Santosh Raut of Techno Planet discussed cost-effective solutions for data storage, data transfer and security for SMEs with limited IT infrastructure. Raut felt that most of the space on servers or individual systems remains occupied due to unnecessary duplication of data. According to Raut, eliminating the duplicates can save more than 30% of the storage space. He shared a few tips and tricks to optimise storage. Raut also discussed the solutions for data transfer over FTPs and using online services. 

The Share To Benefit (STB) forum is formed by the members of the Bombay Master Printers Association. Members of the forum meet on a monthly basis to explore training, technology and management upgradation. STB is the brain-child of the chairmain, Faheem Agboatwala of Hi-Tech Printing Services. To form an StB in your area please contact stb@bmpa.org