From Novice to Native: A Guide to Enhancing Your SMB's Digital Maturity

Digital maturity is a transformative journey that propels organisations beyond the realm of mere survival, empowering them to soar to new heights of success through the adoption and integration of digital technologies into their operations, strategies, and culture. With only 9% of SMBs in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region categorised as digitally mature, it’s time for SMBs to embrace digital technologies to drive growth, improve efficiency, and enhance customer experiences. But, how can they turn this around and shift to a more successful path of digital maturity?

With today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, finding innovative ways to stay ahead of the competition and meet the increasing needs and demands of customers is pivotal to the long-term success of a business. To be successful in this endeavour, SMBs need to ramp up their efforts to improve their digital maturity. Currently, a shocking 91% of SMBs¹ in the Asia Pacific region are facing challenges in levelling up on the digital maturity scale.

To make the transition to a digital-first business smoother, SMBs need to find the right technology partner to help them overcome this challenge and significantly boost their digital maturity. By forming strategic partnerships with tech giants, SMBs will have access to cutting-edge technology that will improve business processes and overall brand recognition. This can also manifest as a horizontal partnership, which is a partnership between different businesses that operate as competitors in the same area. For instance, Samsung’s partnership with Google benefits both the brand and its customers as they are able to leverage each other’s strengths, fostering a dynamic ecosystem of collaboration and driving digital transformation forward².

Partnerships offer access to cutting-edge technologies, innovative ideas, and specialised knowledge that may otherwise be out of reach for SMBs outside the tech field. By working together with larger companies, SMBs have the opportunity to participate in shared learning experiences and exercises that leverage a cross-pollination of ideas, inspiring fresh perspectives and driving continuous innovation.

This is where SMBs can benefit from a partnership with Samsung as Samsung is able to offer them a wide range of digital solutions, rugged business devices, and enterprise tech support — all of which enrich mobile experiences for users and help SMBs improve their digital maturity rating.

Improving your digital maturity rating goes beyond just being tech-savvy and partnering with the right people. For SMBs to truly be considered digitally mature, they must understand what their customers want and translate that into their customer service models. After all, having a robust online presence and offering quality products and services are no longer enough to give businesses a competitive advantage.

Today, customers demand more than just transactional interactions. They seek memorable experiences that cater to their unique needs and desires. With almost 90% of consumers changing their buying habits, it’s vital for SMBs to leverage technology to develop an experience-centric model that not only caters to changing consumer behaviour but also improves their digital maturity.

By placing customer experience at the core of their digital strategy, SMBs can foster deeper connections, build loyalty, and drive sustainable growth. With a loyal customer base, SMBs can amplify their reach through organic marketing channels—such as referrals and product mentions in digital content—minimising the need for additional expenditure on marketing and promotional activities.

An experience-centric model also helps businesses create a seamless user journey that resonates with customers, enhances their satisfaction, and ultimately differentiates their brand in a crowded market. For instance, a customer-experience-centric model helps SMBs gain valuable customer behaviour insights that enable them to optimise their processes, identify pain points, and refine their offerings. With a Know-Your-Customer (KYC) concept in place, employees can use their mobile devices to access customer profiles on the go, allowing them to provide relevant insights and tailor-made recommendations. In essence, the adoption of an experience-centric model is no longer a luxury but a necessity for SMBs to succeed and elevate their digital maturity to new heights.

Taking it one step further, SMBs need to realise that technology is evolving at an unprecedented pace, and businesses need to keep up with the latest advancements to remain competitive. One key approach to cultivating a company culture of early adopters is by encouraging a change-driven mindset. By having a change-driven mindset, SMBs are empowered to constantly evaluate strategies, processes, and technologies, enabling them to proactively identify opportunities and respond swiftly to market shifts.

Change-driven businesses also inspire their employees to become innovators, fostering a culture of curiosity, knowledge-sharing, and growth. With this focus on learning and development, SMBs  can effectively leverage digital tools, such as cloud-based enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software, to drive their digital transformation and maturity forward.

As a result, SMBs will be more open to embracing emerging technologies, such as AI, machine learning, automation, and data analytics, allowing them to optimise operations, improve decision-making, and deliver innovative products and services. This shift in business mentality will help SMBs easily overcome the challenges of adopting new business models and transitioning from an offline approach to an online approach, which is affecting about 80% of SMBs in the APAC region.

According to studies by the International Data Corporation (IDC), 88% of SMBs in the APAC region are also struggling with the rising cost of operations which is drastically affecting profitability. It’s no secret that the end goal of every business is to achieve sustainable growth and profitability. But for SMBs to achieve this, it is imperative that they realise the pursuit of sustained profitability goes beyond short-term gains and focuses on creating long-term value, fostering resilience, and ensuring consistent growth.

Striking a balance between profitability and sustainable growth doesn’t come without challenges. When businesses prioritise one over the other, they often lose out on great opportunities that could have propelled their growth. By creating strategies centred on both profitability and sustainable growth, businesses can make informed decisions, allocate resources efficiently, and weather economic uncertainties. Ultimately, this helps them lay a solid foundation for a digital transformation.

To thrive in the digital era and reduce operational costs, SMBs must embrace a connected workspace. A connected workspace is a collaborative environment where employees can access the tools and data they need from anywhere, at any time, using any device. By embracing a connected workspace, SMBs can reduce operational costs by cutting down on physical office space and associated costs—such as rent, utilities, and maintenance—expensive commuting or relocation, and on-premise infrastructure and maintenance.

To help with this transition, Samsung offers an extensive range of digital solutions and mobile devices that empower SMBs to seamlessly pivot to a virtual workspace. For starters, Samsung offers a wide range of business devices to choose from, such as the Galaxy A series, Galaxy S series, and Galaxy Z series. In addition to these powerful handheld devices, Samsung also has a line of rugged devices that are designed to withstand rough and tough environments. Most of these devices are compatible with Samsung accessories and digital solutions that were created to simplify remote work processes. For instance, Samsung DeX can turn smartphones into computers with a larger display, while the S Pen allows for the digital signing of contracts, shipment deliveries, and more.

Apart from accessories that facilitate remote work, the Samsung Galaxy Enterprise Edition is a business solution that offers SMBs a comprehensive package of mobile technology and services that provide businesses with more control, more choices, and more protection. Thus, by intertwining sustained profitability with a connected workspace, businesses can drive sustainable success in an increasingly competitive landscape while gaining greater agility, flexibility, and productivity.

In an era defined by vast amounts of data and interconnected systems, data plays a pivotal role in helping organisations maximise efficiency. Yet, data proficiency levels of SMBs in the APAC region are shockingly low, with only 8% of SMBs excelling in data, people, process, governance, and technology.

Agile processes serve as a catalyst for bridging the gap between data proficiency levels and decision-making. By establishing a set of agile processes, SMBs have a systematic and flexible approach to project management, enabling them to break down complex projects into smaller and manageable tasks that allow for frequent iterations, feedback loops, and continuous improvement. This also provides companies with a set of proper standard operating procedures that allow for better data management and interpretation. With these processes in place, SMBs can foster collaboration, transparency, and cross-functional teamwork, empowering employees to take ownership, make data-driven decisions, and drive meaningful results.

Beyond implementing processes to better productivity, SMBs must also invest in data security to increase their digital maturity as data security systems ensure that data is safeguarded at all times. With over 80% of SMBs citing data security and building a more secure IT department as their top priorities, Samsung equips all their latest devices with Samsung Knox —a defence-grade mobile security platform built into devices to provide real-time device protection from the moment you turn it on. This helps to ensure that business devices are protected at all times, reducing the risk of lost or stolen data.

This protection is further amplified by Samsung’s comprehensive mobile device management (MDM) solution, Knox Manage, which is designed to help businesses set these processes in place. Know Manage provides companies with the freedom and flexibility to remotely configure any number of devices and tailor them to the needs of the company. With 24/7 access to device fleets, SMBs can confidently transition to a remote work policy—which helps to reduce operational costs—and ensure consistent productivity, as they will be able to control devices and restrict user access to certain apps and data as and when necessary.

This approach helps SMBs introduce and implement a wide range of business processes that are designed to enable better communication, knowledge sharing, and collective problem-solving, leading to enhanced efficiency and productivity. To summarise, agile processes serve as a cornerstone for businesses seeking to navigate the digital landscape with agility and resilience, ultimately propelling them toward sustainable growth and success.

Businesses that invest in their digital maturity journey will be well-positioned to compete in the digital economy and drive long-term success. With the right approach and mindset, SMBs can leverage digital technologies to overcome challenges, capitalise on opportunities, and achieve their business objectives. These small and medium-sized businesses can transition from digital followers to digital leaders by harnessing Samsung's 24/7 technical support and a diverse array of business mobility devices and solutions. This empowerment enables them to innovate swiftly, adapt their business models, and directly cater to their consumers, representing the key differentiator we seek in companies.

Discover the path to unlocking profitable growth and success for your business with Samsung. Click here to start your journey with us today.