Top 5 Tips for SMEs
SustAIn.brussels Top Experts’ Advice for your Company
At sustAIn.brussels, we guide you in your sustainable and digital innovation. In the hopes of helping you succeed with your business, we sat down with two of our experts from Sirris, Nick Boucart and Wim Codenie, and asked them about their best advice they would give any SME.
Firstly, Nick prefaces that an SME does not exist. The term SME encapsulates so many different companies as 99% of European companies are SMEs, making it bold to assume they would all need the same advice and strategy. Any small or medium company can be categorized as an SME, whether you’re a butcher/baker, a small bookkeeping company, or a small law firm. Even as manufacturing company with 70 employees and a couple of machines, you fall under the same category. The real question then is: do all these companies have anything in common? The answer is, probably very little. Therefore, when discussing tailoring our advice to SMEs and mid-caps, we need to be more specific, as any small to medium company can be an SME, but the advice might change depending on what your needs are and which sector you’re working in.
Business Tips
Now let’s dive into the advice. Firstly, focus on solving real problems and try to solve them in a way that is a bit generic for a market, says Nick. Belgium is a country where much of the market is B2B, meaning that a lot of businesses cater and tailor their organization's product to other companies, which can make it difficult to generalize and build a product. So, if you have the ambition to build a product as a service, be more customer centric.
The second advice ties into the first. Yes, you should be customer-centric, however, don't get too attached. You must find the right balance between what is good for the customer, and what is right for you as a company. As humans, we sometimes tend to be overly helpful and are inclined to shift our product too much towards the individual clients’ needs. And as such, it can end up jeopardizing our own scalability and our own success. But on the other hand, it's a very pragmatic thing to do because customers do end up paying the bills. So, the perfect balance is key when it comes to centering your customer, without endangering your path towards growth.
Tech Tips
Thirdly, Wim’s tips center more around the technological aspects of your company. He believes that as a small company, you should use the technology that’s available out there. You should try out the tools, not necessarily because everyone is doing it or because there's a lot of hype around it, but rather to solve a business problem and a job-to-be-done. Many people would be surprised by how specific technology can help advance your business.
The fourth advice given by our experts is to look around and ask for advice. By doing so, you make sure you validate your idea from different angles, by using as many people and experts around you as you can. That’s exactly what we help you do at sustAIn.brussels, by acting as your sounding board for your ideas.
This then links to Wim and Nick’s final advice, which is to bring AI to the table and reflect on the way your company runs. Try to see where you can reap real benefits from applying AI, whether it’s in the marketing process, in your engineering code, or other areas of your company. Think of these language models as a new type of employee that you can start utilizing and think about how and where you can include it in your business operations. It’s important to test it out, because your competitors will also be doing just that. You may potentially figure out that you will not find any gains with AI, but might with another kind of technology, and that’s part of the process. For some companies, AI will introduce more risks than advantages, which means that testing is crucial before fully running your business on AI. And as mentioned previously, every company is different, so making sure you try out the resources available to you is important for your optimization process.
Every SME is unique, but the path to success starts with the same mindset: focus on real solutions, stay customer-centric without losing sight of your goals, and embrace the tools and advice available to you. Whether it’s AI or another technology, testing and validation are key. Let sustAIn.brussels be your guide as you navigate the possibilities.
If you would like a more personal and tailored guidance for your business, you can request a meeting with the experts through the following link: https://www.sustain.brussels/contactus
🖊️ Alexandra Osintseva
Top 5 Tips for SMEs