German SMEs focus on digitalisation

the digitalization seems to have slowly arrived in small and medium-sized companies as well - at least that is the promise of a new SAP study on digital transformation in SMEs.

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The SME sector is setting out

According to the survey, a full 63 per cent of the companies surveyed should have a digital update of their business processes have initiated. However, more than half do not seem to want to - or are unable to - invest additional resources (money or staff) in modernisation measures (although more than half think that these will make processes more efficient). Reasons for this could be that the German small and medium-sized enterprises do not want to interrupt their daily business routine by the introductions. Instead, about half want to invest in long-term solutions. Implementation: gradual and simple, according to the companies. Only ten per cent in the SME sector, on the other hand, want larger projects with faster results for improving processes.

Diversity in the SME sector

At the moment, more than half of the German SMEs on extended and "composite" solutions. One third on CRM- or ERP-software. Furthermore, small and medium-sized enterprises still do not care much for cloud solutions. One third use solutions from the cloud. Another third of SMEs rely on on-premise software. A fifth want neither, as concerns about data security and accessibility are still high.

300 companies from the SME sector were surveyed

The IDC SMB Digital Transformation Survey was conducted last October on behalf of SAP. 300 companies were surveyed in Germany. A total of 3,900 employees from a wide range of industries were surveyed in nine countries.

This is the result of a new international IDC study commissioned by SAP to examine the status of digitisation in medium-sized companies. A total of 300 companies with up to 1,000 employees in Germany took part. "If you want to gain a competitive advantage today, you have to invest in the existing IT infrastructure. This is the only way for small and medium-sized businesses to remain competitive with large corporations," says Jochen Wießler, Head of the Small and Medium-Sized Businesses and Partners Division at SAP Germany, commenting on the study. A detailed white paper on the results is to be published soon.