Small companies and one-person-businesses can use enterprise tech and AI to appear larger than they are says Giacom Cloud Market CEO Mike Wardell.
Founded in 1999 and rebranding in 2017 to Giacom Cloud Market, the company operates a marketplace of 4,000 IT resellers, and bills itself as a one-stop-shop for IT professionals.
Wardell believes that cloud and other enterprise technology is going to help small businesses appear more professional than they are.
“We operate in the SME market and what we’re going to continue to see is access to more and more applications and products that are enterprise class but at a price point and accessibility for SMEs,” he told BusinessCloud.
“AI is now utilised a lot more in businesses and probably will be exposed and used more in the SME market than niche areas where it has been in the past.
“It allows access to capability and makes you look more professional and more trustworthy – if you’ve got AI or machine learning on your website then you can provide better customer service with less resource.”
There are other applications that businesses can leverage to help streamline processes and maintain a professional air says Wardell.
“You can have an application on your mobile that gives you a local or international number,” he said.
“If you dialled out from your mobile previously you’d look like a one-man-band. Now you can get cheap applications that give you that number and make it look like you’re dialling from a business premise, giving the appearance of a larger business.
“If most people think they’re dealing with a larger, more credible organisation they’re more likely to trust it.”
On top of getting on board with newly available technology, the key to success is to keep it simple for customers says Wardell, who is aiming to lead the company to £25m turnover by the end of the financial year.
“It’s all about getting rid of jargon,” he said.
“We get all the vendor complexity and turn it into plain, simple language that the customer can understand.
“The language we use, the benefits, the ordering process – if we don’t do that it fails.
“People definitely want it simple – they don’t have much time any more so if something is a bit difficult they tend to leave it and move on.
“There’s so much information available that if you make something hard to understand people will move away from your business to another business or competitor.
“Also there are lots of different options available so it’s about trying to boil it down and present it in a way that our customers can use to make the right decision for their business.”