By: Dr. Gordon Matthew

Now, more than ever is the time for entrepreneurs to embrace technology and empower themselves with the knowledge required to transform and prepare their small, medium, or micro-enterprises (SMMEs) to the next level of business management. A worldwide survey done by Salesforce Research (www.salesforce.com) indicated that the majority of consumers and companies believe that the digital transformation of businesses and the integration of technology within these businesses, with specific regard to new ways of conducting business, will have a great impact on how consumers interact with companies and other small businesses in the future and how efficient certain aspects of conducting business will become. This also relates to the emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

4IR is described as the fusion of man and machine, resulting in new capabilities for humans and machines to interact and work alongside each other. This results in new technologies are also emerging to make business easier and more productive. These include: blockchain, 3D printing, digital design, artificial intelligence, data mining, cloud computing, augmented and virtual reality, and everything else related to the internet. This further implies that data will become the new currency of the 4IR and will guide businesses into a new era of product development and service delivery.

Given this transformation to a more digitally-driven environment, companies are now starting to employ specific personnel to oversee all technological and digitally related research and development. These executives are known as Chief Technological Officers (CTO). The job of the CTO is to be in charge of all the organization’s technological needs and also examining the short- and long-term technology needs of the organization to help them keep up to date with the latest and future trends.

However, in SMMEs, the employment of CTOs is not possible due to budget and personnel constraints. This means that in order for the SMMEs to stay relevant in the business sector, the responsibility falls on the entrepreneur to keep up to date with the latest technologies and figure out how to use them in his or her SMME. This is undoubtedly a difficult or almost impossible task. Luckily there is a solution for this problem.

The School of Management Sciences of the North-West University’s Vanderbijlpark Campus is in the process of developing a short learning program (SLP) on The Digital Transformation in the Management of SMMEs. The purpose of this SLP is to assist managers and start-up entrepreneurs of small, medium, or micro-enterprises (SMMEs) to develop an understanding of digital transformation and apply this knowledge to their management strategies. Not only will this ensure that managers of SMMEs keep ahead of the rapidly changing business environment, but will also equip them with knowledge and tools to utilize the digital transformation opportunities in an emerging 4IR environment. The SLP will focus on topics related to:

• the Internet of things;
• augmented and virtual reality;
• digital design;
• social networking;
• data mining;
• cloud computing;
• digital transformation within the African context; and
• Automation-specific business-related tasks.

The course will be conducted online over a period of six months (two opportunities each year) and a certificate will be awarded upon completion of the short learning programme. Please follow us on LinkedIn at NWU TELIT-SA for more information on when the SLP in Digital Transformation in the Management of SMMEs will be available for application.