SMB Growth: How Channel Businesses Enable Digital Agility, Innovation

In today's rapidly evolving market, businesses are demanding technological innovation to keep pace and successfully adapt to a dynamic economic landscape.

This goes beyond simply developing new products and services; it's about embracing technologies and processes that empower businesses to be more strategic, proactive and competitive. For small and midsized businesses (SMBs), this translates to harnessing the power of digital tools and solutions to optimize operations, elevate customer engagement and scale at pace.

Channel companies — including VARs, MSPs and ISVs — are playing a pivotal role in guiding SMBs on their digital agility journey. By acting as trusted advisors, deeply understanding their clients' industries, and focusing on enabling SMBs to swiftly identify, adapt to and leverage digital innovations, these companies are unlocking significant growth opportunities for themselves and their clients.

Digital Agility: The SMB Advantage

Digital agility is all about this ability to adapt quickly to new technologies and market shifts. With the support of channel companies, SMBs can become more responsive to evolving customer preferences, emerging industry trends and competitive pressures. This agility also helps businesses stay ahead of regulatory changes, economic fluctuations and technological advancements, allowing them to pivot strategies, optimize operations and seize new opportunities as they arise.

Unlike a comprehensive digital transformation, digital agility emphasizes ongoing, small-scale changes to keep businesses optimized as the landscape evolves.

More and more SMBs are increasingly acknowledging the transformative potential of digital agility and are eagerly embracing it. Sage's global report, "SMBs Demand for Digital Advisory Services Fuels IT Channel Growth[PA1] ," highlights this trend, showing that 90% of channel leaders believe SMBs can achieve digital agility within the next year. Such strong confidence underscores how big the growth opportunities are for channel partners and their ecosystem.

The synergy shows that SMBs not only understand how necessary digital agility is, but how they are actively integrating it to spur innovation and growth. Channel partners are the drivers in this journey, navigating the complex technological and economic changes with expertise and support. Together, by prioritizing strategic adaptation and continuous improvement, SMBs and their channel partners can ensure sustained success and resilience.

From Theory to Practice: Channel Companies as Enablers

In practice, digital agility and how channel companies assist can take many shapes.

Consider a small manufacturing company traditionally reliant on manual processes for accounting and inventory management. As the business grows and its manual accounting becomes too unmanageable, it will soon be on the lookout for integrated financial management solutions that can automate everything from budgeting to payroll, invoicing and more. Integrated solutions give them instant access to financial data across departments, granting real-time financial insights which enable faster and more accurate decision-making. This implementation exemplifies digital agility by leveraging advanced technology to enhance efficiency and adapt to evolving business demands, enabling quicker responses to market changes and opportunities.

Channel companies can support SMBs in several ways when implementing and developing new solutions. First, they can help evaluate and select the financial management solution that best fits the customer's specific needs. Then, they can ensure the chosen solution is seamlessly integrated with existing systems, while also handling data migration and system configuration.

There's also an opportunity longer term by offering continuous training on how to maximize solutions. Similarly, channel companies can continually optimize solutions with new features or additional tool integrations, so it can take on more complex financial scenarios as the needs of their customers grow and evolve.

Industry Focus: The Key to Becoming a Trusted Advisor

This scenario presents an opportunity for channel companies to evolve from tech providers to trusted advisors, guiding their customers toward growth and innovation.

However, industry focus is crucial. Each sector has unique challenges, and understanding these intricacies allows channel companies to tailor their services and solutions more effectively, resulting in more successful technology implementations and higher customer satisfaction.

A Collaborative Ecosystem for Success

SMBs are rapidly adopting digital agility and seeking guidance from channel companies to fully leverage its benefits. This, in turn, creates new growth opportunities for providers who can establish themselves as trusted advisors.

Fortunately, channel companies don't have to navigate this journey alone. A collaborative ecosystem of channel partners that promotes the sharing of innovative solutions, strategies, best practices and insights helps partners to approach customer challenges holistically and develop the most effective solutions collaboratively.

This collaborative environment allows channel companies to address customer challenges more comprehensively, ensuring that solutions are not only effective but also tailored to the unique needs of each SMB.

By tapping into the collective expertise and diverse capabilities within this ecosystem, channel companies are better equipped to manage complex and varied business demands, delivering greater value and driving success for SMBs.