Small and medium businesses have faced a lot of challenges in 2020-2021. Global spread of COVID-19 has been the key contributor..
There has been a disruption in the way business is being done. Employees working from home is becoming a norm now. They now need remote management. Thus, technology adoption demands are increasing.
Solutions to meet changing needs of Customers and Employees are in demand. This is driving new innovations that are gaining traction.
Some Business Owners have already implemented solutions. And they are already seeing results that are encouraging.
"Great Companies" brings you trends that Small Business Owners should watch out for.
Experts Prediction for Small Business Trends in 2022
Providing services/sales through a hybrid of online & offline mode
Every company and staff member of every organisation must understand the purpose of the organisation. It shouldn't merely be about numbers & generating more profits. The organisation must have a long-term vision, and it must benefit the larger good of the people. Going into 2022, every organisation that expects to be successful must learn the art of generating revenue by providing services/sales through a hybrid of online & offline mode.
Cyril Prince
Coaching & Training
The giga economy a most happening trend
2021 exit post COVID world and 2022 will thrive normalcy with new rules of the game. To Mention a few, Online presence for business will be commodity, global raise of citizen development to ease out productivity and overcome technical dependencies, the giga economy a most happening trend, the realistic growth with predictive analytics, blockchain plus Cryptos attract larger investments, maximizing the NFTs drives the patents, K12 training will get a major leap with AR/VR/SR, sustainable and renewable energy innovation, Machine learning couples with data science facilitate Medical gadgets with deep analytics, nanotechnology will be foreground play for textiles, agriculture, medicine. With adversity transforming into disruption the local markets shrink totally for prosumers with lesser spends and campaigns, community engagement shall drive customer delight.
Mani Kumar Lakkaraju
NoCode Solutions
Select the Right Business Partner
- Balanced Mental Health, to control self, Family and Team Members for all upcoming situations to.
- Open Work Environment to work in Hybrid mode / Work from anywhere with targeted results for growth of self and the organization.
- Digitalization, utilize available Cloud Technologies and social media for reach-ability to all customers with optimal operational costs and not on capital investments.
- Training, Self and Teams skill development in new technologies to up lift the business and make your own space in the market with updated solutions.
- Selection of Right Partners to Cooperate and integrate for reaching new heights of the business.
Greeshmma Natraj
Psychology Counselling
Trends Some Positive, Some Negative
The trends that I foresee for small businesses:
Positive:
1. Technology – Technology will play an even more critical role in shaping businesses.
2. Empathy – The pandemic taught the employers and the employees about the importance of empathy. Business owners will use this skill while building their products & solutions. Knowingly or unknowingly, they will start using the principles of Design Thinking.
3. Collaborate – Many businesses realize the power of collaboration. We are going to see more mutually beneficial partnerships.
Negative:
1. Short term over the long term – I have seen a few business owners focus more on the near term ignoring the long term.
2. Compromising Values – To stay afloat, some businesses are taking this route. If they see some benefits, they may continue.
Aditya Kuchibhotla
Business Coach
10 Trends for Rapidly Changing World
These ten major trends provide a snapshot of how business operations are evolving to suit our rapidly changing world.
Trend 1: Sustainable, resilient operations, Every organization must seek to eliminate or reduce the environmental costs of doing business. Decarbonizing the supply chain is a sensible place to start, but forward-thinking businesses are looking beyond the supply chain to improve sustainability across all business operations. And of course, sustainability is linked to resilience, since resilience means being able to adapt and survive for the long term. Any business that ignores sustainability is unlikely to do well in this age of conscious consumption.
2: The balance between human workers and intelligent robots,
3: The shifting talent pool and changing employee experience.
4: Flatter, more agile organizations
5: Authenticity
6: Purposeful business Co-opetition and integration,
8: New forms of funding. 9: Storytelling &
10: Microlearning.
Shreedhar Kaaranji
ONLINE BUSINESS COACH
Be ready to learn, unlearn, and re-learn
Small Business in 2022 will no longer exist if Small Business Owners change their Mindset. We are on the verge of the biggest opportunity post COVID-19. If Small Business Entrepreneurs are able to shift their paradigm and develop a success mindset, they can be play an integral part of India becoming a Trillion Dollar Economy. The Question is are we ready to learn, unlearn, and re-learn? Are we ready to plug the Knowing-Doing Gap? Are we ready to take Massive & Consistent Actions ? If yes. then 2022 is ours and Small Business will be history.
Sidharth Shah
Coaching & Training
Hire Professional Coach, to sustain and upgrade your Organization
Every entrepreneur’s efforts which they put in their organization to take their organization at certain level. We believe that human factor is the strongest factor responsible in success and growth. Now days in this corona pandemic situation, every enterprise has its own mind set up, planning, design as well as challenges to run the organization to sustain in market. Most of the organization facing problems in develop market, sales, after sales services, customer relation and many more era. Every entrepreneur is stuck off day to day, they don’t have a time to grow business. To sustain and upgradation every organization need a professional consultant or coach, they help them to opt-out from panic situations, they guide, support and implement in process of flow chart.
Dharmesh Gajjar
Business Coach, Consultant, Corporate Trainer
Business owners to jump the wagon of automations and AI
I expect a lot of automations and AI based processes happening in the small businesses sector. Right from marketing to HR to finance, with so many simple solutions coming to market, it becomes sense for business owners to jump the wagon of automations and AI. The entire thing will drive the Digital Transformation wave forward with much more agility.
Nidhi Vishnoi
Online Technical Trainer
Go Green
Changes come with situation. Go Green (paperless especially in UAE), Digital Marketing and Artificial Intelligence these trends would be bang on for 2022, these would give a great path way for entrepreneurs.
Regina Deepu
Business Formation
Expand in new markets/customer segments
With many small businesses closed in 2020 and 2021, 2022 is going to be a challenging year as well. Aside from COVID restrictions, emerging technologies are putting pressure on SME’s. The top trends that can help small businesses respond to those challenges are:
• Adapting and/or expanding your e-commerce efforts
• Focus on retaining customers and delivering exceptional customer experiences
• Expand in new markets/customer segments
• Allow flexible/remote employment solutions
• Use automation/AI powered tools
Now, we understand that we can’t predict how this year will turn out but with the experience we have gained during the past 2 years we can be more prepared for unexpected situations. Stay as flexible as possible, don’t be afraid to try new approaches and be open to new possibilities.
Thanasis Papapostolou
Customer Experience
8 Commandments for small businesses in 2022
1. Displaying Cyber-safe behaviors. An email ID that reads “Small.Business@gmail.com” tells me you are comfortable doing business over the public internet.
“Thou shall get your own domain name.”
2. You do need to be findable online.
“Thou shall have your own website.”
3. Create your professional brand.
“Thou shall be active on Linkedin.”
4. Avoid paper. Soft copy proposals to e-signed invoices are the way forward.
“Thou shall care for the environment.” But also shows you are tech savvy.
5. Quality cannot suffer at the hands of the accounts department. The only winner is your competition.
“Thou shall not pinch Paisas and waste Rupees.”
6. Small companies should first adopt technology that creates greater effectiveness (read topline), before they look for technology to deliver greater efficiency (read bottom-line)
“Thou shall worry about a healthy topline before worrying about a healthy bottom-line”
7. Be ahead of your competition when it comes to using big data and analytics. Todays business is a combination of electrification, automation, and artificial intelligence.
“Thou shall look to the clouds for insight and wisdom.”
8. It’s not enough to think like a big company, you must behave like one. Else you will be limited to chasing the next customer, and the next, and the next.
“Thou shall think big and act bigger”
Bhaskaran Srinivasan Strategy Consultant, Leadership Coach, Trainer
Strategy Consultant, Leadership Coach, Trainer
2022 will definitely be a year for getting the profits.
I believe 2022 will be great in terms of everything because there was a lack in last one year. So the business men will work with the double loss power. Since 2021 was having recuperation, 2022 will definitely be a year for getting the profits. I think 2022 will be a great year. The manufacturing sector will do great in the year of 2022 because we are having problems with Chinese and so we have a problem with the imports and so this sector will do great. Healthcare industries will always do great. Traders and online shopping will do much better. More than that the local businesses where people provide services to the local people will do much better. Every sector will take out very well because once the economy opens up, everyone wants to take a piece of cake.
Sidharth Saxena
Business Coach
Tourism and Education sector will bounce back
We have already suffered a setback. With a stable government, the small and mid- size business are supposed to do great. Now we can see a lot more boost in the service industry with more trained sales force, so keeping this in mind we will be able to see a greater shift towards service industry. Tourism and Education are two areas which will develop in 2022. In education, in the past, we have seen a lot of companies emerged and education related startups and similar trends will continue because covid has acted as a kickstart point for the shift from offline to online. So, I think these are the industries that will be benefitted in 2022.
Vineeth Sharma
Business Coach
Small and mid-size businesses will comeback with full of energy.
2022 will definitely be a great year because due to the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, a lot of small and mid-size business has suffered a lot. Almost more than 50% of the business were shut. Actually after 2021, they started coming back. If you see the statistics 64% of the company owners maybe small or medium, but they are saying that they are ready to survive and they will come back strong. 2022 will be a great year for all small and mid-size business because of this pandemic a lot of people/customers have started doing small businesses due to the lack of job opportunities. Instead of searching for a job, they started their own businesses for example, freelancers or some small businesses. These kind of business and their surviving also we have seen. For instance, before 2 years, we used to order cake or pastries from a big company/shop and we take takeaways from that shop only. Due to the pandemic, we started ordering from the nearby shop. So that is why, the small and medium companies are coming back with a lot of energy and 2022 will definitely be a future for small and mid-size business because big businesses are already surviving and they have survived. So small and mid-size businesses will comeback with full of energy.
Rinkal Shukla
Business Coach
The possible answer for 2022 looks optimistic
From my view, last 2 years have been into the pandemic. It has been a blessing as well as disguise for some of the industries. The major benefit has gone to the online platform or people who have not explored themselves or what we call it, new normal. The trend for new normal was there and will be going to be there because this was something unexplored. By now, most of the teachers or students or companies who are not aware of there is an another way of doing the work also. So, industry wise focus, IT companies possibly they are the first one to take the section to make sure that they are carrying out the huge business pause to their offices. Most of the travel cost will reduce in times to come. In recent times, people started believing that once you have met as I have worked for 26 years into the banking industry wherein the previous thought was to call and meet all your channels or your customers. So now possibly the thinking has been changed and now people believe that if we have met in, we can skip one or two months and you can contact on the zoom call or whatever mode available. The possible answer for 2022 looks optimistic, more excited and encouraging because we have gone through the rough patch of last two years. Despite the fact whatever people talk about the politics part and here and there, people are very optimistic and margins have improved no doubt, especially on a higher side but still since margins have improved the industries performing better, our census is an example of it and very possibly it’s not something called ‘balooning’, which is happening there which is the result of the profits getting improved in the bigger companies also. Possibly this benefit will be going to the Small and mid-size enterprises (SMEs) also on creating the demand. It’s like someone has taken a rest and now it’s ready for a more speedy recovery or speedy journey. So, the worst is over and something good will follow. So, I am quite optimistic for SME’s and almost all the sectors are optimistic in 2022.
Sanjeev Chandhok
Business Coach
Small Businesses need to be more technologically-driven
2022 seems to be a great year for small businesses to grow only if they anticipate system and process orientation inspired from big companies, which curtails the manpower dependency. Small Businesses need to be more technologically-driven as investments on manpower is not feasible to them in the long run. 2022 for small businesses should start with embracing cloud-based IT solutions like ERP, CRM, Task Management Software, Logistics Management Software. Since digital is the new buzz, Small Businesses shall adopt digitalization; they should focus on developing mobile-friendly websites, creating social media pages, constantly creating quality content for lead generation etc. 2022 marks the beginning of ‘Industry 4.0’, the next step in the evolution of manufacturing, which will take off IoT, Automation and Analytics.
Rajesh Radhakrishnan - Cofounder and CMO
Technology, Media and Marketing