How can MSMEs build resilient businesses that thrive in a post-pandemic world?

To counter the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses around the world had to react in agile and decisive ways to stay resilient. While the micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) sector was among the worst-hit during the pandemic, Indian MSMEs demonstrated remarkable resilience as they reinvented business models and accelerated their digital and tech adoption to stay resilient in the face of the many challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Indeed, the pandemic accelerated digitization across industries, as businesses, including MSMEs, leveraged digital tools and technology to ensure business continuity, rethink operations and supply chain management, and drive customer engagement and reach.

Adapting to the new way of work: One of the more noticeable impacts of the pandemic was the shift from working out of the office to remote working (work from home). Investing in the right technological solutions and collaborating with the right partners for developing a robust digital platform helped businesses, including MSMEs to ensure a smooth transition from the status quo to the new work from home model. Even in the current post pandemic world, we are seeing the emergence of a new working model i.e., the hybrid model. In this context, it is vital that MSMEs continue to invest in digital platforms and technology solutions that make working from home or office equally efficient and ensure seamless transition between the two.

Integrated digital and tech systems: Digitization is critical for businesses to remain competitive in today's world as it helps increase the operational efficiency of businesses. So is the need for investments in emerging technologies like AI, IoT, cloud computing, and robotics, among others, to ensure businesses become future-ready. As this technological shift continues to happen, MSMEs should leverage digital integration with other business tools and applications to ensure data centralization, improve customer service, streamline overall business operations and improve efficiency, and enhance data analytics capabilities.

Resilient supply chains: The pandemic exposed the weaknesses in the global supply chain, causing supply chain disruption, raw material shortages, and rising prices. As the effects of the pandemic started to ease, businesses have focused on creating more resilient supply chains. Investments into cloud, AI, and digitization can help create better logistics management and build more robust supply chains. Intelligent workflows are built on clear data strategies that use both AI, machine learning, and automation. Digital platforms can help create agile solutions to solve short-term issues such as container shipping optimization or labor management, while cloud solutions can ensure scalability, supply chain security, and connected supply chain management.

Digitizing your business continuity plan: Business continuity plans refer to plans businesses create for prevention or recovery when threats and disasters occur. The Covid-19 pandemic, the resulting supply chain disruptions, and the war in Ukraine have put business continuity plans in the spotlight. The impact of the pandemic on Indian MSMEs and large businesses could have been improved with better continuity planning. Working with companies like Dell Technologies that offer a comprehensive set of small business solutions can help MSMEs create stronger business continuity plans as they can rely on the technology solutions that are provided by such partners. According to a Gartner business continuity survey in 2020, only 12% of businesses surveyed said they were prepared for Covid. In the digital age, business continuity plans can be created and distributed more effectively. Using digital platforms, data can be shared among teams and in the event of threats or disasters, all team members would have fast and easy access to the required data to be able to react quickly.

Cybersecurity: Increased digitization comes with risk and cyberattacks are a major threat to MSMEs and all businesses that have gone digital. Around 74% of small businesses reportedly suffered cyber-attacks between 2020 and 2021, a period of heightened digital adoption. According to a report by McAfee and FireEye, 77% of Indian organizations experience cyber-attacks during festive seasons, a period when online traffic is highest but is also a time when 91% of organizations have difficulty maintaining a fully staffed security team. MSMEs need to invest in cybersecurity solutions that help detect cyber risks and secure their business operations, such as Dell Technologies’ end-to-end cybersecurity solutions that ensure comprehensive threat detection, response, data protection, and cyber recovery.

Conclusion:
In a post-Covid world, building resilient businesses means investing in the right technologies and right people. However, many MSMEs are still in the early days of their digital transformation journey and require the right guidance and solutions to enable them to build resilient businesses powered by technology. That’s where technology partners like Dell that offer a comprehensive set of small business solutions such as hardware devices, technological solutions, and small business support services come in, as they enable these businesses to grow and thrive in an increasingly digital world. A technology partner like Dell Technologies can help MSMEs not only with their hardware needs such as laptops and servers, but also with other tech solutions that ensure all-round IT security, monitoring and managing of IT infrastructure. Dell Technologies also works with small businesses by providing the advice and tech expertise that’s needed to help businesses grow, while creating a community dedicated to helping businesses get the right networking and growth opportunities.