No one denies the impact the Internet has had on society. More than evident impact in social life, and interpersonal relationships, as well as in more formal communication.
The mail almost completely replaced the fax (today it is only kept as a back up, in exceptional cases).
And it is frequent that people with almost no computer training can chat with family members on another continent.
But beyond the extension of social or recreational use, we note that in most Latin American SMEs (in the entire region we share the problem), the use of digital tools applied to management itself is very limited.
Most companies (we would say 98% of SMEs) have PCs, generally working on a network.
Almost all of them also use some management system, applied mainly to administrative work: invoicing, collection control, checking accounts, etc.
But how many managers have assimilated and regularly and effectively use technological resources in their task?
Much less than 15% (we carried out a survey among a hundred SMEs in Buenos Aires, and although the sample is not significant, it gives an indicator.
What do we mean by technological resources applied in a Digital Management model?
- Time management, carried out through shared agendas, in any of its versions: it is something that saves a lot of time, and also gives transparency to the activities of the cadres. Being able to see and modify the agenda of a work team from anywhere, is something, technologically simple. However, it is used much less than expected, either because of unfounded fears, because of the bad habit of withholding information…, or simply because of ignorance of the possibilities of the tool.
- control of commercial management: through appropriate CRM. There has been a lot of talk about the software that allows us to order business relationships… in fact there are manuals and treatises on the subject. What I see? that only 20% of SMEs own them, and only 25% use it fully. Again, the same reasons and pretexts: there is no time to make notes, I am on the street, and I do not have the notebook at hand… (Excuses at least absurd when it comes from the same person who just bought a 3G cell phone…
- Production control: through remote devices, annotations and controls per payroll are no longer necessary.
- shared documents: in which we can work simultaneously from anywhere in the world….
- teleconference, and videos…. and the list goes on.
Undoubtedly, all useful tools, which together, lead us to a new management model, which can be independent of its physical location as never before in history, and at the same time, focus on interpersonal relationships, since the information is automates… with a noticeable improvement in productivity at the top levels of the company.
The proper application of these tools reduces the time spent. For example, coordinating a meeting takes more than half an hour for a manager to agree on time and place. A shared and automated schedule in your alerts reduces this to zero.
A budget prepared in a spreadsheet, which we then present in a room, projecting it from an Excel so that others can make comments and then rectify it. It is a gigantic waste of time. The same shared worksheet, with the participation of the relevant operators, works simultaneously. There is no meeting. The work is finished in the final version, on the same day it started. Avoiding at least 20 hours of management. (5 managers at 4 hours each).
Let's do the sum, multiply by the number of activities carried out in a month, and you will see that managerial salaries are being wasted on trivial issues, for which there is already an adequate technical solution.
The curious thing is that in most cases the infrastructure already exists, digital tools and applications are free or very accessible, and there is almost no additional cost to be able to take a company to the digital management model.
So where is the stumbling block?
Mainly, in the training of managers, specifically in the use of new technologies.
Many of them were outside the technological model and reject it, but at the same time they have great managerial qualities in business management, which are invaluable.
On the other hand, we have a new generation, very familiar with technology, but not yet trained in the "core" of management, and who can easily lose the "focus" of the business.
But there is something else: training alone is not enough either. In many cases, the tool is known and not used. Therefore, an indispensable condition (and I allow myself to assume) prior to any activity is to recompose the discipline of work at the high levels of the company.
The final answer depends on an intense training effort, within the framework of a solid work discipline, which in many cases we must reconstitute from scratch, as we have seen in these years of professional work.
The challenge before us, then, is to merge both cultures, taking the most profitable part of them, in a transformation process that may be more or less prolonged, but which (based on training and work discipline) can lead to SMEs at the level of competitiveness that this 21st century allows us.
