the digitalization seems to have slowly arrived in small and medium-sized companies - at least that's what a new SAP study on digital transformation in SMEs promises.
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 modernisation measures. However, more than half do not seem to want to - or be able to - invest additional resources (money or personnel) in modernisation measures (although more than half think that these will make processes more efficient). The reason for this could be that German small and medium-sized enterprises do not want to interrupt their day-to-day business operations as a result of the introductions. Instead, around half want to invest in long-term solutions. Implementation: gradual and simple, according to the companies. In contrast, only ten per cent of SMEs want larger projects with faster results to improve processes.
Diversity in the SME sector
Currently, more than half of the German SMEs to extended and "composite" solutions. One third on CRM- or ERP-software. Furthermore, small and medium-sized enterprises are still not very keen on cloud solutions. A third use solutions from the cloud. Another third of SMEs rely on on-premise software. A fifth want neither, as there are still major concerns about data security and accessibility.
300 companies from the SME sector were surveyed
The IDC SMB Digital Transformation survey was conducted last October on behalf of SAP. A total of 300 companies were surveyed in Germany. A total of 3,900 employees from a wide range of industries were surveyed in nine countries.
These are the findings of a new international IDC study commissioned by SAP to investigate the status of digitalisation in SMEs. A total of 300 companies in Germany with up to 1,000 employees 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 SMEs to remain competitive with large corporations," said Jochen Wießler, Head of the SME and Partner Business Unit at SAP Germany, commenting on the study. A detailed white paper on the results will be published soon.
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