The Argument for SME Businesses in the Age of AI

I am an SME business owner.  I believe that some of the best businesses are small ones with an owner operator who has a vision or a belief that things can be done better.

SME businesses have a big advantage in terms of coming up with and trialing new ideas, and if I’ve dedicated my career to anything, it’s to this.

When you have a team of 10-100 people, change can be implemented and trialed quickly. Critically the people or person who makes the decision can see the real world impacts of the change with her own eyes. This leads to quick correction of mistakes or unintended consequences.

Beyond this, you also have an owner who was probably someone who has done the job quite recently, they may even still do key elements of the job. These components are the reason that SME business are the hot bed of innovation.

If you believe what I believe, the amount of our customer experience (the service we offer) that is delivered digitally is going to increase a lot, then you must have control over that technology.   

The Proptech Trap

The decisions on how your service is delivered is increasingly being outsourced to Proptech suppliers.  

There is a good reason for this, it has been way beyond the capabilities of most businesses to have ‘in house’ technology.   It takes a lot of time, and the key ingredient to a business’s success is what the people do, what they say and how often they do it.

The Age of High Skill / High Tech

The partnership that is about to be formed between your people and AI will define to what extent you allow yourself to become a commodity.

If your tech is the same as everyone else, then how will your customers choose?  If they all log into the same app to book viewings then your business is literally bundled in with your competitors.

You need to be able to train and correct your AI.  You need to be able to decide how your valuation process is going to work, you need to be able to decide how your viewing feedback is going to be delivered.   

These decisions are the differentiators of a growing part of your business. 

If you want to design a new service then this should be incorporated into your digital operating system not run in parallel waiting for your CRM provider to think it merits inclusion in their product.

CRM providers in the next 5 years will become a brake on innovation as the cadence of change increases, they will be forced to ‘pick winners’ in terms of their clients’ ideas for innovation.

Most estate agency businesses rely on legacy systems with bolt on technology seeking to create differentiation by the different combinations of identical products.

The Best of Both Worlds

So what’s the solution to this problem? My answer is that SME businesses need access to software that works out of the box (so you don’t need to spend / time and money customising it to begin with) but you can customise the look, feel and every facet of it.

Without this we end up being an amorphous mush of sameness. If there is anything that being part of the SME sector is about it’s about avoiding that.

If you are thinking about how you will thrive in the age of AI to create a world class operating system then do feel free to book a call or drop me a whatsapp.