[ad_1]
The opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You are reading Entrepreneur Middle East, the international franchise publication of Entrepreneur Media.
As a significant contributor to the country’s economy (accounting for 40% of Dubai’s economy and 60% of the UAE’s overall economy), the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market is a highly dynamic one with unique connectivity needs that must be supported. While the UAE already offers numerous opportunities for SMEs to seize, the arrival of Expo 2020 Dubai will further enhance the prospects for emerging businesses in the country. Of course, this is a great prospect for the economy of the UAE as a whole and Dubai as an emirate, but it also presents a unique opportunity for companies to provide services tailored to the needs of SMEs. In order to develop products that not only successfully serve them better, but also provide you with the competitive advantage you need to succeed, you must understand them and determine what makes them different.
Understand the market
An important starting point in building a unique value proposition is to segment your potential customer base by identifying their unique needs. Each segment has different value proposition needs, as well as individual financial potential and approach to market. It is important to align attitudes and needs with corporate structure and behavior; this is an area where clarity and focus will enable service-providing companies to be proactive and responsive, thereby gaining an advantage over the competition.
Through segmentation, effective marketing – knowledge and complete understanding not only of the target market, but also of the potential customer’s environment – is possible. To ensure a successful marketing strategy identifies new customers and customers, you must focus on four points to gain customer insights:
1. Who are the best target customers?
2. What are the target customers’ purchasing motivations?
3. What are their buying or purchasing criteria?
4. What is their buying or buying cycle?
Customer first
In today’s rapidly changing world, the focus should be on delivering the best value to SMEs through designing targeted propositions. At du, we adopt a ‘customer first’ philosophy to meet the specific needs of the SME market; this puts the customer at the heart of everything we design, drawing directly on their insights and input.
In addition, we also provide customers with as much peace of mind as possible by providing price transparency and price predictability. This gives them complete control over their spending, eliminating bill shock and allowing anticipated amounts to be allocated into the budget for telecom and ICT needs. For small and medium-sized businesses, staying on a tight budget is very important, which makes it a great plus point for any service provider to offer.
Beyond this, we place a strong emphasis on the importance of building and maintaining ongoing relationships. We achieve this by creating an ecosystem of events, forums, networking and coaching sessions. Not only do these add value and build strong rapport, but they also deliver a level of excellence in customer experience that we can continually improve upon – our customers are important to us and we continually innovate to provide the best possible service to them.
Key challenges facing SMEs
The SME sector plays an important role in the UAE’s diverse economy, comprising 95% of small businesses and employing 42% of the country’s workforce. As a sector, SMEs contribute 40% to Dubai’s economy and 60% to the UAE’s economy. Simply put, if SMEs grow, the economy will grow. With the success of Expo 2020, the UAE government is now focusing more on providing more impetus to the industry by promoting entrepreneurship and SME development.
However, SMEs face a unique set of challenges, such as limited budgets, fragmented markets, broad service preferences, and varying decision-making processes across companies. These are barriers that must be overcome if the industry is to truly benefit from external support. In this case, a good starting point for success is to address the unique characteristics of the SME market. It must be given the attention it deserves and not viewed as a larger version of the consumer market, or a smaller version of the large enterprise market.
One of the other key factors to consider is that SME owners are extremely busy – they are raising a new business baby, so to speak, and are committed to seeing their business grow and succeed. For one in three UAE SME owners, travel is essential to the success of their business, which is definitely something worth considering as they may gravitate towards products that offer them travel-specific benefits. Time is also precious to them. They want convenience, they want fast service, and they want as little hassle as possible in getting those services. Simply put, what SME owners want is genuine engagement from a partner who can support and manage their growth and be part of their success story. Understanding this and catering to this has been a key driver of our successful work with SMEs over the years.
du’s growth spell
It’s important for SMB customers to fully emphasize the benefits of your proposal so they can clearly see why they should adopt your solution and can make a quick, informed decision. It’s critical to du that we ensure pricing is transparent and that products and services are specifically designed to meet our customers’ individual needs. We have identified several aspects that are particularly important for success. all these are:
a) Familiarity and consistency Consistently delivering the service parameters your customers expect is an easy way to attract more business. As small and medium-sized businesses become more familiar and comfortable with our products and services, they often come back asking for more. It’s important to us to be part of the customer journey, from initial purchase to cross-sell and then intelligently bundling more services along the customer’s growth path.
b) Word-of-mouth communication Another key aspect we strive to achieve is strong customer references from our customers. Word of mouth is a powerful medium for growth and we encourage our customer base to give us feedback and promote our business by showing support.
c) Customer Lifecycle Management (CLM) To continue attracting business, we strive to understand our SME customers and provide them with long-term benefits through customer lifecycle management thinking. For example, we provide customers with unified billing and identity management to consistently ensure a good experience. This helps their business and ours grow. A dedicated, qualified retention team is our greatest asset and core to our success.
d) Adopt digital experience We clearly see that more and more small and medium-sized enterprises understand the importance of digitalization and hope to obtain business benefits from this area. In the coming years, digital channels will play an important role in customers’ purchasing experience, adding more services to manage their accounts digitally, provide after-sales service, and make online payments. Our digital initiatives play an important role in delivering these ambitions.
Being a significant player in the small business market means you must consider changing customer lifecycle needs. Today’s businesses need to be more agile and innovative in both service design and delivery, and it’s critical to find a reliable partner that supports their vision and business growth. The future looks promising and we are changing rapidly to enable small and medium-sized businesses to make the most of tomorrow’s opportunities.
[ad_2]
Source link