Effective sales and marketing strategies are the key factors for any organization to boost up their sales process. Most business analytics focuses on what entrepreneurs call as perfect Sales Template, Focus on what you want to do, Understand how you can do it, Define a proper methodology, Discover the Problems and finally finding out ways to eliminate those hurdles.
Most Common Problems Faced By the SMEs
SMEs or the small and medium industries face the maximum challenges to elevate their business management process to a greater extent. To accomplish this, they have to realize their potentials and weaknesses put efforts to strengthen themselves. Some of the commonly faced SME entrepreneur problems are:
Unorganised data organisation
Many small scale enterprises and startup firms may not feel the need to have organised system of data management as they have a limited set of customers and products to take care of. But in the real world, a startup and small scale enterprises need an organised system of data management as much as a big organisation, as the sales and marketing team needs more time to deal with clients rather than managing trivial data updates in the system.
Many times the sales and marketing team miss the important meeting due to forgotten upcoming client visit and may end up losing the deal. Also, an organised system of report and data analysis is also very important to track business strategies and futuristic process management for better revenue generation for the firm.
Higher Attrition Rate
Many SMEs face high attrition rate due to overwork and less payment issue. Employees have to do a lot of manual jobs along with their regular client interaction which causes over burden of work for individuals. Also, due to the lack of automated services to track work on the move, many sales and marketing employees have to sit long hours at work to finish their admin work after their client visits. These unorganized and unsystematic process management leads to unsatisfied employees and high attrition rate.
Less skilled manpower
Many startups have unskilled and manual manpower which cause a lot of delay in production and product deliveries. Repetitive and manual work also add to the mercy of delayed shipments and unhappy customers.
Low capital investment
Not many financial institutes want to link up with startups and small venture due to the risk of failures and non payments. This causes a lot of money crunch for small scale enterprises and leads to limited resource for the team.
Higher competition from established marketers
Every pond has big fish bullying the younger ones. Similar is the case with the current economic market where small scale enterprises face a lot of limitations in resources and financial restrictions along with big time competition with old timers and big establishments. This makes small enterprises very reluctant to enter an already established market and have limited success rate in their ventures.
Problem of raw materials
The procurement of raw materials is another major difficulty faced by small-scale industries. Scarcity in the raw materials means that there is a waste of productive capacity for the economy and is a loss for the unit. Because the scarcity and the competition have increased and all the small-scale units who are competing with the large scale are suffering severely. Though the small industries get help from the government, yet they don’t have any special staff to communicate effectively with the official agencies, these are left with inadequate supplies and often have to resort to the purchases of the open market at very high prices. This will increase the cost of production.
Export difficulties
The systematic evolution of the small-scale industries in India with the economies of operation in particular with the case of labor-intensive or batch-process items has contributed in the large measure to expansion and divergence from the export pattern of the country. But, in all this progress still, the small scale industries face the problems which will make it difficult to undertake the exports in organized and appreciable manners.
Problems of Power
The problem of shortage of power has become widespread for the past few years and also has become the most glaring and telling problem of the economy. But the impact of this is clearly causing failure to the small-scale producers, anyhow large-scale manages to escape from this. There are two aspects of this problem, one is there is no power supply always, everywhere available for the small scale industries on mere asking and wherever it is available it is rationed out, limited only for a few hours in the day. This means if the small unit can also manage to take the advantage of the power supply at fixed hours, it is well and good, otherwise, it will be unutilized which will lead to adding of cost. Secondly, unlike the large scale industries, small scale industries cannot afford the alternatives such as the installation of their own thermal units, because heavy costs are involved.
Strategies for Overcoming Challenges
Access to Finance
Utilize government programs designed to support small businesses, such as subsidies, grants, and low-interest loans. Explore crowdfunding, angel investors, and venture capital as alternative sources of funding. Improve financial literacy to better manage funds and understand financing options.
Human Resource Management
Invest in training programs to enhance the skills of your workforce. Foster a positive work environment to improve employee retention and productivity. Offer flexible working hours and remote work options to attract and retain talent.
Market Intelligence
Conduct regular market research to stay informed about industry trends and customer preferences. Use customer feedback to improve products and services. Analyze competitors to identify strengths and weaknesses and develop strategies to differentiate your business.
Competitive Strategies
Focus on niche markets where competition may be less intense. Clearly define and communicate your unique value proposition to stand out in the market. Provide exceptional customer service to build loyalty and attract new customers through word-of-mouth.
Efficient Management Practices
Invest in management training programs to enhance leadership skills. Implement efficient processes and use management tools to streamline operations. Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor and improve business performance.
Navigating Taxation and Regulatory Compliance
Hire tax consultants to help navigate complex tax laws and optimize tax liabilities. Stay informed about regulatory changes and ensure compliance to avoid penalties. Use software solutions to simplify tax filing and compliance processes.
Technological Adoption
Embrace digital tools and technologies to improve efficiency and competitiveness. Utilize e-commerce platforms to reach a broader audience and increase sales. Implement automation to reduce manual tasks and improve productivity.
Government Support and Future Prospects
The government plays a crucial role in supporting small scale enterprises through various initiatives like providing grants, subsidies, and low-interest loans to ease financial burdens. Investing in infrastructure to create a conducive environment for business growth. Offering training programs to enhance the skills of the workforce.
SalesBabu CRM for Small Business
SalesBabu brings forth exclusive customer relationship management software meant for meeting the needs of the small and medium marketing enterprises. The software works on-Demand, that is, on the cloud based platform, which offers Software-As –A-Service. This means that they get complete IT infrastructure for their database management on the rental basis by a separate vendor. Thus, the cost of establishing a separate IT department for database management, software maintenance etc got minimized. The complete sales process gets automated at an affordable cost. It helps to automate the complete sales process which eases the employee tasks.
Advantages of migrating to SalesBabu CRM
SalesBabu CRM provides automated features for every sales stage starting from lead management till the after sales support and inventory management. SalesBabu CRM is a great tool to manage end to end sales cycle with limited resources and organises system for every requirement in business processes.
- Help employees to manage work in an easier way.
SalesBabu CRM provides endless features of data and process management from tracking lead on various modes of communication and adding into a centralized location and also tracking every enquiry or complaint reports from clients, along with organised system of quotations and sales order management and processing.
The whole workflow is managed in an organised way with automated features of report and analysis of the performance of each member.
Mobile Sales app in the software helps organising their work on the move and create quotations and sales order without being at the desk at all times. With this Mobile sales app, sales personnel can share their live location to balance their work life balance and track their work in a better way.
The sales team can access the centralized customer data to understand their demographic background to create more targeted campaigns and close better deals.
Read More – MIS: Now Get All Your Reports Just by a Single Click
- Help manage organization resources
SalesBabu CRM records details of every raw material , final products and other resources at a centralized location and maintain all information on their delivery and movement in the warehouses. These integrated data can be accessed by different stakeholders to track the movement of these products in the stock and manage them with better efficiency and minimum wastage and theft.
Read More – Top reasons why mobile CRM apps are good for your business.
- No Hardware and software requirement
SalesBabu CRM is cloud based software system which has not restriction on hardware and software requirements. Once a client wants to implement SalesBabu CRM for their business they just need a login details for their firm and an internet services to be good to go with using the software.
SalesBabu CRM provides 15 days of free demo trials which helps customer to be aware of the whereabouts of the system after which the interested clients can continue to the software services with affordable prices which can easily be accommodated in their SME budgets.
- Ensures complete data safety and security
Being a cloud based software service, SalesBabu CRM provides many encryption and security facilities provided by cloud service vendors. Apart from which, SalesBabu CRM have role based access for customer data with specific permission to edit,create and delete centralised stored data in the system.
Read More – Can your crm help you comply with data privacy regulations
Conclusion
SalesBabu CRM provides an excellent tool to manage business data and employee performance at a centralised cloud based software system which enables small scale enterprises and startup ventures to explore their potential to the best.
