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India's small-and-medium enterprises (SME) sector, which has been the primary driver of the country's economy, is expected to play a lead role in adoption of SMAC in coming years, professional services firm Ernst & Young said in its report SMAC- the new growth driver for SMEs in India.
Social, Mobile, Analytics, and Cloud, more known as SMAC is seen opening up huge opportunity for the SME sector not only to grow revenues by increased marketing to new customers, but also to bring in operational efficiency and transform the customer experience, it said.
The report talks about sectors like banking and financial services and retail that could adopt to SMAC technologies to create and nurture an ecosystem that will enable these industries to do business better and garner relevant insights to streamline their operations and build a much stronger relationship with clients.
According to the report, among several other benefits, adaptation to SMAC model would help the BFSI segment generate qualified leads by leveraging cost-effective channels and map customer lifecycles better and identify areas that most need timely services. The report also speak about benefits that the retail segment can derive after adapting to SMAC.
In the case of SMAC technologies, there are specific points that need to be kept in mind in the context of companies, said Ernst & Young.
"Businesses can initiate the process by first undertaking a diagnostic study by assess digital maturity across people and processes of technologies of their organizations across SMAC solutions." Companies should also assess the position and industry maturity of their competitors and develop capability maps based on organizations' goals and strategies.
Lastly, highlighting the importance of SMAC, the report concludes saying that those businesses which harness SMAC will be the ones to lead the new wave of growth.
"SMAC technologies have become so advanced, affordable and pervasive that they are now available to businesses of all sizes," said the report. "This is opening up an opportunity for SMEs to level the playing field and compete with larger players. The need of the hour is for SMEs to take the lead in adopting SMAC and make it an integral part of their business strategies. Those that are successful in understanding the power of SMAC and harnessing it across their businesses will lead this new wave of growth," it said.
