Vodacom Business moves to crack the SME tech gap

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges small and medium enterprises face in adopting technology and how Vodacom Business aims to bridge the tech gap.

Everyone agrees that small and medium enterprises are the backbone of the South African economy. But the reality on the ground tells a different story – too many small businesses are still running on spreadsheets and WhatsApp, locked out of the tools that could help them compete. In this episode of TCS+, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod is joined in-studio by two members of the recently established Vodacom Business advisory board: Sannesh Beharie, managing executive of SME and mobile products at Vodacom Business, and Andrew Fulton, co-founder of data analytics firm Eighty20, a Vodacom Business partner. Vodacom Business set up its advisory board last year to bridge the gap between enterprise-grade technology and the small businesses that need it most, bringing together tech leaders and external specialists to help companies – as well as SMEs – navigate digital transformation. In the conversation, McLeod, Beharie and Fulton dig into what’s actually stopping small businesses from going digital, whether bundled connectivity and cloud offerings are genuinely good for SMEs or just a polite way of locking them in, and where AI fits into the picture for a 20-person business in South…

People in this episode

Host: Duncan McLeod

Guests: Sannesh Beharie, Andrew Fulton

Topics covered

• SME technology
• digital transformation
• cloud offerings
• AI in business
• Vodacom Business strategy
• small business challenges

Keywords

• small businesses
• technology adoption
• digital tools
• cloud services
• AI
• Vodacom Business
• Eighty20
• SME market

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Vodacom Business, Eighty20, AWS, Google, Microsoft

Places: South Africa

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