Bracing for Lean Times with Web Technologies

The writing is on the wall – the global economy seems destined for a rough ride ahead. The US appears to be caught in an economic rut and Asia may not be quite as immune from the woes of the US economy as many are hoping.On the home front, a recent HSBC survey revealed that small businesses in Singapore are far less optimistic about the growth outlook than they were six months ago.

Not all that surprising, really, considering a recent Business Times report that Singapore appears to be loosing its competitive edge – mainly due to sharp increases in wages and other operating costs.In fact, Singapore is now ranked # 7 globally in a table of most expensive office rents compiled by real estate consultants Cushman & Wakefield with an average rental rate of SGD 185 per sq ft. Meanwhile, Singapore’s GDP shrank by 4.8% in Q4 of last year.So, how should a small business weather this “perfect storm”?For the smart business owner, this slow-down may the perfect opportunity to transform her business’ competitiveness by leveraging innovative web technologies.For starters, it is the rare small business that cannot benefit significantly from a healthy dose of process optimization. Many small businesses use their resources inefficiently due to poorly-designed, redundant and badly-managed core processes.

The good news is that, with maturing on-demand and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) automation solutions, powerful process automation and management tools are now affordably available to small businesses.Another area to review is the marketing function. Most small businesses are still stuck in the era of broadcast-mode, push marketing. Small, niche-focussed businesses, in particular, ought to explore the advantages of content-driven, pull-marketing techniques made possible by the recent social web phenomenon.

Tools such as blogs, white-papers and active RSS feeds can seriously turbo-charge your small business’ marketing ROI when implemented correctly.Finally, small businesses should aim to deepen their relationships with their existing customer and supplier base. Tools such as wikis, forums and smart web applications are ideal for developing and engaging a firm’s extended community.

This can not only help a business to sell more and higher-value products to existing customers but can also help the business effectively identify, develop and capture new product or service opportunities.So, don’t let the general pessimism get you down – take this opportunity to create your own silver linings to the gathering dark storm clouds.