In the present business environment, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are experiencing the turbulent winds of challenging times. Fast-growing large enterprises called conglomerates are capturing much of the market and dominating many industry sectors. At the same time, artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how all businesses work. For SMEs, leveraging AI may well be the lifebuoy that keeps them afloat and allows them to prosper.
The Rise of Conglomerates
Big companies that have many smaller businesses underneath them and that usually have more money, resources, and power than small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). This lets them do things like lower prices, advertise more, and expand faster.
Take Facebook and Uber, for example. They assert that they back small businesses. But can these two companies really claim to be allies of the small business when the markets they control are so tightly wound up and when they work in ways that make it hard for small businesses to compete? They are winning in the market. They are leaving little room for the small players. — Vox
There are times when these colossal firms land in hot water. The Adani Group, one of the largest business conglomerates in India, was charged with fraud in the U.S. Then, there's the Mitsubishi Corporation, which saw $90 million in losses going up in smoke because of a fraud case in China.
How AI Helps Small Businesses
For SMBs, AI can be a game-changer. It can help with the automation of tasks, time saving, and, in the end, smarter business decisions. Here are some instances where AI can lend a hand:
Pricing Dynamism: AI can help businesses remain competitive by fine-tuning their prices according to demand.
Stock Control: Artificial Intelligence forecasts sales of which products; it does this with great accuracy, reducing the incidence of overstocking and understocking. Reduced overstocking and understocking leads to reduced waste (of products that might otherwise expire or become obsolete) and it also leads to savings (because the AI sometimes saves us from having to pay unnecessary storage fees).
Customer Service: AI chatbots can take care of typical inquiries, which allows personnel to concentrate on more important duties.
Advertising Conversion Rates: AI helps analyze massive amounts from different channels and touch points to take decisions for increasing conversion rates from advertising. Advertising Tech AI Beyond the Ads: Using AI to Analyze Impact of Brand Advertising on Sales.
AI tools available on platforms like Shopify help small businesses do something large ones do easily: write product descriptions and manage discounts.
Affordable AI Solutions
Budget-friendly alternatives to pricey AI platforms can be found—and some of their features might delight small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs). For example, 1min.ai is a platform that offers a suite of AI tools for a $39.99 flat fee. Among other things, those tools can assist with writing, for anything from landing-page copy to, well, this sentence. And they can help with image editing, which is something a lot of us could use extra assistance with right about now. SFGATE
The Risks of Ignoring AI
Fail to boost revenue by harnessing their data.
Be unable to personalize the customer experience because they lack AI-enabled tools.
Miss significant opportunities to streamline operations and enhance productivity and profit margins.
Interact with customers in ways that are inefficient and ineffective.
Larger firms that harness AI become more productive and more competitive, threatening to outpace smaller, less technologically sophisticated rivals. This is particularly worrisome in the ability of some of these large AI-using companies like Amazon to become monopolistic.
Overlook Opportunities: AI can find trends and customer preferences that humans might miss.
Fight with Expense: AI can handle jobs, which means fewer new hires. And coming up with cash for new hires is tough when you're struggling to stay in the black.
The more AI appears, the harder things may become for SMBs that don't catch up. They could adapt in many ways.
For example:
AI-powered CRM tools could help a sales team understand customer interactions better than ever.
AI could help revolutionize market research, providing insights to organizations that make strategic decisions.
Conclusion
The business landscape is shifting swiftly. Even as the behemoths of industry continue to grow and dominate, the smallest enterprises in our economy have new paths forward that can help them remain competitive. Artificial intelligence (AI)—once the sole province of the largest corporations—now offers affordable, accessible solutions that allow small businesses to not just survive, but also thrive. In a rapidly changing business landscape, AI is proof that the smallest enterprises have new potential.