A recent survey presented by Fundação Getulio Vargas in partnership with ABDI (Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development) showed that the digital maturity of micro and small Brazilian companies is still low. On a scale of 0 to 100, the average index was 40.77 points.
The service sector presented the best results (average score of 43.73), while the commerce sector had the lowest score: 36.75. The average of points for the industrial sector was 40.49. The survey carried out throughout 2021 was entitled “Map of Digitization of Brazilian Micro and Small Companies”.
New entrepreneurs have had more contact with digitization alternatives, as is the case with photographer Suiane Sant’Ana, 33. With the drop in demand for her work during the pandemic, she decided to become MEI (Individual Microentrepreneur) to have a source of income .
After participating in training courses at Sebrae, Suiane learned to make handicrafts with leather items and created Sant’AR Coleiras.
The pet accessories brand uses fashion concepts to escape the childish aesthetic of this type of product. The investment was BRL 10,000, and 30% of this amount was used to create a website and drive digital sales.
“It has not been easy to maintain investments in technology, but it is important for the site’s visibility, since we do not have a physical point”, he says. “My intention is to offer, along with the collar, an identification tag that stores the animal’s data, but this will require a much greater investment.”
The perception of the importance of boosting a business that was born digital is also shared by Karine Camucci, who created, in 2020, a professional outplacement consultancy. Você Empregado emerged after she was fired from a multinational in the automotive sector.
“I had to develop skills that I didn’t have as a CLT, such as in relation to marketing and sales. When resources were more balanced, I prioritized the creation of the website to promote consulting services and the development of a landing page [página estática] to help attract people interested in my online course”, he says.
The first step was to open an Instagram account. The purchase of the domain only came a year later. Currently, customer prospecting is done through messaging apps and social networks, while calls take place via Google Meet. In the second semester, Karine intends to invest in digital marketing.
In the case of Materlap, a coworking company, the technological tools help to organize the flow of customers in the physical space, which was created by the pedagogue Isabella Moreira, 32, and the parental educator Marina Zirpoli, 33.
The company opened in 2019 is located in Santana, in the north of the city of São Paulo. On site, there is space for remote work and also for the customers’ young children to play.
They use management software, but, according to Marina, the next step is to look for customized tools. “It is in our plan to adopt our own application for management control, scheduling and reservation of rooms and schedules, in addition to an electronic agenda for communication with families about the daily lives of children in our space.”
In relation to startups, which already have a structured technological base, investments in innovation, especially aimed at personalizing the business, are naturally higher. Einat Eisler Carasso, 35, CEO of Freshmania — which delivers fresh dairy products — says technology is the “backbone” of his kind of foodtech business.
“What consumers see on the website [ecommerce] is the tip of the iceberg, but there is a whole system that guarantees stock management, picking control [método de separação de pedidos] and deliveries”, says the businesswoman, who relied on independent investors to get an initial investment of R$ 2 million in technology, marketing and logistics.
“We developed our own system so that it responds fully and in a personalized way to the needs of customers and partners.” According to Einat, the platform helps not to waste food, since, as it works with fresh and perishable products, there is no stock.
Businessman Jair Romano Jr., 35, acquired the license to use the platform from a partner company, Evolve Tec, to adopt the CRM Lask tool in the franchise of the Perky Shoes footwear brand, which he owns, at Mooca Plaza Shopping (east zone of São Paulo). The system works through geolocation and artificial intelligence mechanisms “to capture potential customers and improve the offline flow of commerce”, says Romano.
Specialist in Technology, Innovation and Trends Arthur Igreja explains that platforms of this type are important for small and medium-sized companies, which are less able to invest in customized solutions.
He states that companies of this size cannot go wrong in customer relationships and need management tools “to have the business in hand, as large corporations have much greater power to do all this and even develop internally what is necessary” .
In the opinion of Jean Tomceac, professor of the Technology Track at Faculdade Sebrae, there is no predetermined percentage of the investment available in a company to allocate to technological resources.
“It all depends on how much, how and when the investment in a technology product or service should give a financial return”, says the professor. To arrive at an estimate, according to him, it is essential to use metrics to measure performance, such as the Key Performance Indicator, known by the acronym KPI.
However, talking about technological innovation in entrepreneurship does not necessarily mean having a lot of money.
“Companies still associate digital transformation with very complex technologies. But for the reality of small businesses, for example, we are talking about simple changes, such as setting up a profile [da empresa] on the social network at no cost”, says Adryelle Pedrosa, manager of ABDI’s Digital Transformation Unit.
For online sales, for example, the specialist says that there is no need to structure a platform of its own at the beginning, but rather to market the products through existing marketplaces “until you realize that it has matured and then you can develop your own software or application”.
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