[Nile TV] Tech Trends to Boost Egyptian SMEs

[Nile TV] Tech Trends to Boost Egyptian SMEs

[Music] welcome back our dear viewers as we have promised at the beginning of the show that today we are going to talk about the importance of technology to what extent technology could help in boosting the business in Egypt and to solve the problem of unemployment and also to uh boost the economy uh through um attracting more investment and uh uh pushing forward the economy uh as as a whole to shed more light we are very much delighted to have with us Dr Abdu magdi is a technology consultant hello sir it’s a pleasure to be here thank you good morning uh Dr Abdu first to what extent technology help in minimizing running costs of business yeah I think like in today’s business and today’s world technology is integrated in everyday’s life and uh for business owners we’re looking for ways to minimize their costs I think there’s a lot of Technology Trends and Technology tools that’s available for them to do that yes and also to shift the investment that they have between different channels for example when it comes to advertising marketing and reaching the Right audience we’re seeing a lot of businesses using Facebook and Google advertising lots of channels opening up in terms of reaching to the customers in terms of managing customer relationships you might be able to use something like a CRM tool or customer relation management so when we look at technology and its rule in in business we can see that there’s a lot of potential in reducing costs and also helping businesses expand and reach more customers Mr Abdu what are the specific trends that are expected to be in focus in 2017 I think we have been seeing a lot of Trends coming up like like big names like Internet of Things uh Automation and virtual reality so these are all emerging trends when it comes to technology that’s influencing Like the Way businesses is being done like if we look at some of these concepts for example automation we can look at how each and every part of business can be automated starting from the marketing from the production lines there’s lots of tools that’s being developed in enhancing automation artificial intelligence is another aspect in which that’s analyzing and taking decisions based on like analyzing data within the business is something that’s coming uh to be done automatically as well so virtual reality is another aspect in which that people can like look at for example in a real estate business there’s a lot of applications when it comes to real estate and uh architecture Etc when it comes to Virtual Reality so all these are Trends that’s emerging and um the good thing is that some businesses have already started like building applications and taking advantage of these Technologies to enhance their business so in your opinion is internet marketing affecting business negatively um I wouldn’t say internet marketing or technology is affecting business negatively because like um as a technology evolves it open like it requires the right professionals and the right labor to get things done so I would say that like U when businesses and economies are embracing technology uh they would have a better chance for them to develop their business enhance their economy and it’s not going to be an issue yeah technology like U makes some existing ways of doing things unnecessary but it also opens up lots of possibilities for new ways and new possibilities how could be done Mr AB I think it has to be done by embracing technology I think it’s not like an individual decisions in which like which technology tool to use but I think on top of the business or the organization there has to be the thinking in terms of what are the technology Trends how can we take advantage of them and accordingly when you have that strategy people and also the technology people within each company looking at the best ways they can utilize business by then they would be directing and training their existing human resources to utilize Technologies and accordingly they would not need to to replace them though they would even need to kind of recruit people is who are used to and who are capable of dealing with this technology so how can small and medium Enterprises make use of advanced technology yeah I think one of the misconceptions that comes to all these uh big technology Trends is that it’s very expensive so mostly if I’m a a small business owner it would be difficult for me to take advantage of all these uh nice Trends though I think like one of the business models for the big technology providers is is a subscription based model which basically you can subscribe monthly or even less than that so you pay as you go for utilizing these core Technologies which is which makes it very possible for small business owners to access these Technologies and take advantage of different parts of these emerging Trends in their businesses uh how thees could benefit to the maximum from the technology uh Mr well I think like small small businesses can look at the way you do business generally I think they would need to analyze the whole cycle of that their business go through and they would look at the best technology tools that’s available for them to take advantage of it I think if you’re building a new business today if you look at how do I look at my operation at my Administration payroll management at my marketing and I would subscribe to a number of tools I might find that I purchase subscription let’s say was $1,000 $2,000 a year but by the end of the day I’ve actually put aside a lot of hassle in terms of managing staff and in terms of doing things a classic way so if you’re setting up a new business or you are upgrading your existing business and its infrastructure you would look at subscription based tools that can kind of that you can utilize to run different parts of the business and that’s the best way smes can take advantage of these emerging Trends and Technology generally so how can a business owner stay ahead of uh technology and make sure they don’t miss a growth opportunity yeah I think that that will depend also on the background of the business owner I think like people who are not from a technology background which I think like this would apply pretty much to them because they are not technology people they are not naturally keeping themselves updated with what’s happening in in the technology front I think for them to subscribe to a few resources that’s sending like regular updates when it comes to what’s happening in technology and how to take advantage of it like I think there’s a lot of business networks and a lot of Publications in which that they can find lots of resources when it comes to like um keeping ahead and also understanding the uh competitive components of of new technologies and what other uh like businesses regionally and globally are doing within their specific uh industry as well how can technology technique help business owners develop their businesses in a way that Pro probably uh save costs yeah I think when it when it comes to save costs I think it’s going to come down to uh Automation and also to labor so basically you can reduce the cost when it comes to labor you can reduce the cost when it comes to production you can reduce the cost in overall planning and administrative cycle so I think if you break down what you’re spending uh in business so you’re going to be spending in administration you’re going to be spending in production and you’re going to be spending in sales and marketing and I think like in all these aspects there are different ways in which that you can optimize your operation embracing technology Trends which will dramatically decrease the cost so to what extent the technology can scale the business geographically yeah I think this is a very very big area when it comes to scaling like because a technology infrastructure has like infinite possibilities when it comes to scale if I’m keeping my customer database on um online on the internet by then I can have endless number of customers or if I have a website where people sign up they create an account so by then I can have like endless number of customers the same thing if I’m relying on for example call center operations that that has lots of automation integrated to it I would see that automating the process is not going me if I’m a a new business owner I’m starting uh a new startup maybe uh for anme or something like that how I can adopt a system that could help me to reduce the cost to be um uh to do better marketing uh through using the technology yeah I think this usually starts with Google actually it starts before that it start with the intention so once you decided that you want to embrace itology yes is that you see that for example let’s take one aspect when it comes to marketing see that I’m spending a lot of marketing and I would like to kind of U manage my spending and manage manage my operation when it comes to marketing I would go to Google and say that marketing technology I would search for any uh kind of keyword that would give me resources when it comes to the latest marketing techn marketing technology tools uh I would I would learn that there’s something called marketing Automation and there are some different Tools in which that I can use to automate lots of the uh used to be kind of uh manual operation that happens when it comes to marketing uh I would kind of shift big part of my advertising budget into digital I would be able to access clients using different websites Facebook and different other channels and by then like by searching and having the intention to go and search for the right tools to utilize I think you can reach like the right tool and the right uh paway all the other option is that you can also look at different technology service providers so if you reach out those Service provid close by and ask them about what is the best technology that I can use for example to reduce my um like production costly if I’m a factory for example and I’m looking at more advanced technology when it comes to mecatronics for example uh I would kind of look at the right Consultants to find out the latest technology Trends and how they can be integrated within my business so so technology is the is thought after as a challenge to business it affects employment and make people stop needing some of services they need to pay for what’s your take on this well I I think as we said it’s it it becomes the attitude of the uh economy or the society or the business and that’s that’s looking at technology I think if we are uh embracing the new if we open for the new uh but then we will be able to kind of restructure our approach to embracing that and accordingly structuring our employment and lifestyle around the emerging technology Trends because uh like when we look at it we can never stop technology technology is uh developing and uh there will be ongoing Trends and there’s no way to to stop that so uh you cannot like stop the time in terms of like having the the the business going the same weights is being done maintaining the same level of skill and awareness for human resources so this is not possible because technology is going to continue being emerging I think it comes to the people in the leadership to look at that as a strategic matter for them to embrace technology to train their staff when it comes to technology and also for the new generations at schools and universities they have to be also trained on the latest Technologies uh because by then they have a better chance on getting employed and possibly starting their own businesses as well many people now are working in the field of Technology itself uh by using um or using the technology like using mobile apps for example or uh marketing their stuff through social media or even working through social media Now by uh doing some catering or selling online um so to what extent the technology uh in that way is developing new businesses I think that’s a very good question because like the the the big thought is that uh technology is no more an industry but rather technology is a service to Industry which means that there’s not those people who are working in the technology industry but rather like in all different Industries so if we look at agriculture if we look at production if you look at real estate all these different sectors they actually have to have a technology component integrated to them so I think we we’re starting to think that there is not these technology people which we used to call them in information uh technology or it um I think like what’s what’s coming is that like technology is being embraced within different economic sectors within different companies we’re starting to to see CTO or chief technology officers people who are responsible of uh like finding the best technology for the business to grow even startups who are not from a technology company so they are not an IT company but rather they are using technology to best Ser their customers so I think the uh the way to answer your question is that technology is no more an independent industry but rather it’s it’s an integral way to do business and accordingly like all companies has to be embracing technology they have to be having a technology component we might actually be utilizing a very small part of the economy that’s actually developing the technology itself but rather everyone within the economy is concerned about technology and utilizing technology in their business so mentioning Internet of Things Big Data analytics and Automation and many other uh words that you said what they what are those uh expressions and how can uh business owners use them to create more intelligent products uh in their business yeah I think like if we look at like some of these uh concepts for example iot or Internet of things we’re going to be seeing that lately like everything had been connected to the internet so for example if you’re connecting like a camera to uh to your business reconnecting any kind of device this device is is is like always on and always collecting data so if you’re able to process these data on a large scale but then you can reach a lot of Intelligent Decisions so by then a concept like internet of things that’s uh like gives us access to a lot of sources of data that can be utilized in different ways um artificial intelligence is another aspect in which that like machines can start becoming intelligent and responsive to human behavior so uh these are all different Trends that’s emerging and I think like uh we are starting to see businesses embracing that for example a very big um like Trend that have been like emerging even lots of Egyptian companies have been embracing that is what they call chat bots so chat Bots it’s um like as we all chat on like WhatsApp or Facebook or whatever you can actually add a chat agent that’s not actually backed by an individual but rather it’s a it’s an automated chat agent that you can ask different questions too so you can find lots of businesses um would actually who are not on 247 uh you would just be able to download their chat bot and by then if you have any question if you need any support inquiry is going to be directing you to the right resource so having something like chat Bots is something that’s being embraced and I think this is something that has uh lots of potential also to uh grow in utilization and like all these Technologies bring us these tools so there is the core technology Trends itself and then the tools emerging from these trends so I think as we start seeing lots of these tools and the good thing also because we’re all connected today on mobile phone on desktops we all connected to the internet 24/7 so as consumers we start utilizing these uh as consumers first and and hopefully this is going to be like a shortcut for businesses to start utilizing that as they see it as consumers first indeed uh Mr Abdu magdi our technology consultant thank you very much sir for your precious input thank you thanks a lot thank you very much thank you Mr Abdu and now dear viewers this brings us to the end of today’s edition of The Breakfast show i’ like to thank my mahti thank thank you very much and of course our dear viewers tomorrow wait for us again in The Breakfast show with another fruit and then it’s [Music] goodbye

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