Big Data, blockchain, and Arti cial Intelligence are some of the leading technology trends that have changed the way big companies do business. As waves of tech transformation have swept over big players on the global scene, small and medium-sized businesses have sat on the sidelines, watching and waiting. Now, it’s their turn. 2017 marks the year small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) jump into the game with their own technology transformations. Here’s why that’s happening now, followed by some of the biggest trends so far this year

1. 1
A GUIDE TO THE YEAR’S
10 TOP TECH TRENDS
FOR SMEs
Big Data, blockchain, and Artificial Intelligence are some of the leading technology
trends that have changed the way big companies do business.
As waves of tech transformation have swept over big players on the global scene,
small and medium-sized businesses have sat on the sidelines, watching and waiting.
Now, it’s their turn. 2017 marks the year small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs)
jump into the game with their own technology transformations. Here’s why that’s
happening now, followed by some of the biggest trends so far this year.
Big Companies Adopt New Tech, SMEs Follow Suit
It’s no secret that large enterprises have had a tough time grappling with Big Data. As they
worked through issues centering on collecting vast amounts of data, their job had only begun.
Next, they faced the complex issues involved with finding cost-effective and secure ways to store
all that data. That prompted wave after wave of cloud migration, and it’s still happening.
Now, in the next wave of transformation, managers at large-scale companies are tasked with
learning how to use data rather than merely collect it.
But, as the big players in commerce, tech, finance, government, and communications have
worked through their growing pains with Big Data, small and medium-sized enterprises have
benefited tremendously. They’ve learned by observing.

2. 2
Now it’s their turn to enter the arena where Big Data plays a major role in the way they do
business.
SMEs Adopt Tech Transformation to Stay Competitive
The changes just ahead for SMEs who want to stay competitive are enormous. Many of these
changes center upon the momentous adjustments that will have to be made in order to harness
the power of Big Data.
However, collecting, storing, and accessing data are only the beginning of the transformations
that will take place for many SMEs. In many cases, businesses will face changes amounting to
no less than total structural organization. As you’ll see below, Big Data affects every role at a
company, not just the IT department.
And yet, Big Data isn’t the only initiator of change. Digitisation is playing an increasingly extensive
role in transformation as well. As SMEs move towards digitisation of their processes, even more
structural design changes may have to come about.
SMEs Shouldn’t Be Afraid of Change
Luckily for SMEs, changes on these grand levels are faster and easier than what is typical for large
organizations. By definition they’re smaller and very often, they’re younger. Newer companies are
less likely to have gigantic legacy systems weighing them down.
In older, larger companies, legacy systems for internal communications, data storage and
retrieval, customer care, marketing, project management and more make transformation a very
involved and expensive process.
Change Originates Here
For SMEs, tech transformation comes as the answer to a series of questions.
• What does it mean to ‘harness Big Data?’
• What types of changes have to be made in order to make use of all that data?
• What forms does digitisation take?

3. 3
Ten of the tech trends in the air for SMEs this year.
1. Business Models are Changing, Driving the Need for More Data
To compete in the global market, SMEs must become more customer-focused. That’s becoming
the only way to distinguish a product or service these days, as products are shipped around the
world. Besides, consumers now expect superior customer service in all its forms.
In order to become more customer-focused, companies must get to know the customer deeply.
That takes a complete study of the customer journey, as recorded through online behavior. How is
that possible?
SMEs will have to adopt customer retention platforms, project management software, and online
platforms that bring everything together: communication, sales, marketing, production, and
more.
And, those platforms will have to be adopted on a company-wide basis. Traditionally, data has
been siloed, which is to say that each department collects, stores, and accesses its own data sets.
There’s never really been a lot of cross-departmental sharing of data in most companies. Now,
they will have to think about breaking down those silos.
Moreover, leaders will face integrating new sources of information with legacy data stores, which
were often collected by traditional means.
2. To Truly Benefit from Big Data, SMEs May Have to Consider Restructuring
IT employees involved with the collection, storage, analysis of data will have to work more closely
with management and all departments. That’s because more departments will now want to
benefit from data insights: engineering, sales, HR, etc.
In some companies, there won’t even be an IT department any longer. Instead, those IT roles will
be absorbed by other departments or moved to the Cloud via subscription-based services.
In a 2017 report on tech trends, Deloitte remarked that during the past ten years, companies
have adopted a dramatically different perspective on the role of IT. IT is now viewed as something
that’s part of the overall business strategy, and therefore something with which every employee
should be involved.
As IT functions are woven into the very fabric of each department, SMEs will be better positioned
to benefit from Big Data and digitalisation. Data-driven Marketing will become more fully
integrated into the entire organization: every employee is part of fulfilling company goals, based
on the company mission, for a superb customer experience.

4. 4
In other words, everyone from customer contact personnel to accountants and engineers will play
a role in fulfilling the company’s mission statement. Consider the examples of Zappo’s, whose
core values are instilled in every single employee. The result? That company is now the world’s
best example of how a customer-centered business will eventually outperform its competitors and
rule the market.
3. SMEs Will Face More Competitive Pressure to Jump Into Big Data World
Data is important not just for capitalizing on the customer journey, but also for enhanced decision
making. In fact, one of the major benefits promised by proponents of Big Data is better insight
and analysis.
Companies can collect customer data in order to move toward becoming more customer-
centered. They may also use that data to inform their decision-making process. But that’s not the
only type of data they may use.
Lots of tech companies are offering up data for sale these days. As a result, companies might
decide to jump into data-driven decision making by snatching up all sorts of data. They feel the
pressure to gain a competitive edge, they come across the perceived convenience of purchased
data sets, and they dive in.
But are they actually making good use of all that data? This will be an ongoing question for SMEs
as they enter the era of data.
4. Quality or Quantity: SMEs Will Begin to Focus on Good Data, Not Just Lots
of Data
SMEs, like their larger counterparts, are beginning to amass huge stores of data. But as their
larger counterparts have already discovered, to succeed, it’s a question of quality over quantity.
According to an MIT Sloan survey, managers now report they have enough data. However, they
are still under pressure to become more data-driven. So, it’s not a question of amassing data, it’s
a question of honing in on the right data.
But what is the ‘right data’?
For starters, they’ll need to go about cleansing the unstructured data they’ve amassed. They’ll
also need to think about reducing noise in their data, which essentially means weeding the
garden, so to speak, of unwanted types of data.
5. They Will Need Help With Making Data Useful
As SMEs make headway on harnessing data and extracting insight from data analysis, they will

5. 5
need to make use of intelligent algorithms. These algorithms are important in order to extract
patterns and trends in data.
Where does that intelligence come from? The intelligence help may, in some cases, come from
third-party companies. Setting up these partnerships will become a major focus for SMEs.
6. They Will Need to Upgrade Infrastructure
Collecting data is one thing. Harnessing data is another. Extracting insight is yet another thing.
All this requires speedy access to data stores. As many of the large enterprises have already
discovered, speedy access will require new infrastructure.
That might come in the form of better hardware. Larger servers and faster connections is one
obvious answer.
Some larger companies are forming their own internal cloud-based data servers. It’s their way of
maintaining control of their servers, yet paving the way for faster access to data.
For SMEs, however, that will probably prove to be too costly an investment. For that reason,
SMEs are trending toward moving to the Cloud. They partner with cloud services that provide
ongoing support, fast access to data, and security services as well.
7. They Will Need to Focus on CyberSecurity
Everything discussed so far will require major investments in cyber security.
A large part of that will be Cloud security. This has been a trend for a few years now, but it must
continue as tech trends develop and permeate the SME world.
Another aspect of cyber security that will require increasing attention is internal security on
devices. The changing workforce, which is becoming younger, is more apt to bring about policies
of bring-your-own-device. This presents security risks, especially when customer data is accessed
or stored on multiple mobile devices across the company.
8. They Will Need to Consider Data Privacy Issues
Cross-border data flow volume has grown by 45% since 2005 and SMEs are increasingly
contributing their share of the data transfer. This brings about a number of data privacy issues.
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) sets the tone for rest of the
world when it comes to data privacy and security. It’s comprehensive, strict, and highly protective
of the way data is collected, stored, and transferred.

6. 6
The GDPR governs the collection of data, storage of data, retention of data, and the use of data.
Each of these aspects of data privacy will need to be addressed as SMEs enter the Big Data
arena.
9. IT Departments Will Change Radically
This fact was briefly touched upon earlier in Trend #2. Automation of many IT services will result
in redefinition of the IT departments. Furthermore, IT functions will melt into the everyday roles of
other, non-IT departments.
In short, IT will become the concern of all employees.
What’s left of the IT department will transform, too. Because of the move to the Cloud, some in-
house server functions will disappear. As noted in a February 2017 report by Deloitte, this frees
up IT resources for innovation. IT employees will be more involved with innovation rather than
merely helping people with their passwords.
This transformation will also free up physical resources, as companies may no longer need to
house servers on site.
10. Digitisation Varies Widely Across Companies, But the Trend Will Continue
Companies who have gone digital show advantages over others. Likewise, those born digital have
advantages too, and they’re more likely to be small- and medium-sized businesses. Some are
much further along the path than others, yet the overall trend continues to move forward: more
companies are implementing more digital processes even as they search more ways to digitise.
As 2017 melds into 2018 and beyond, we’ll see an evening-out of progress with digitisation. This
will occur as more SME companies come up to speed with their new platforms and processes.
Conclusion
Data and analytics are considered transformative. SMEs do need to ‘transform’ to be competitive,
to grow, and to thrive. The process has only begun, however. At the moment, SMEs are still only
capturing a fraction of the value of the data they have.
As they catch up with harnessing big data, triggering digitalisation, and completing their plans
for restructuring, they can then look towards a brighter future. Then, in the next wave of change,
they can possibly even look forward to employing machine learning and artificial intelligence.
For now, however, these ten trends are more than enough to keep SMEs focused on change and
technology as they prepare to enter the 21st century along with their larger, global counterparts.

7. Contact your Bright representive today for more information:
333 Latimer Rd, London W10 6RA | 020 3031 9500
sales@bright.co