How can SME's benefit from Service Marketplaces?

SME's globally operate under very stressed business scenario. The first and foremost challenge is access to capital. Bank's feel that lending to SME's can lead to higher NPA's. Large companies hold-up payments of SME's because they know that SME's will not have the money and resources to pursue legal options. As a result SME's are always in a firefighting mode. When it comes to requirement of any business services which is beyond their regular set of work, they either do not know who to approach or try to find out someone within their network who may not be the best option in that scenario. In due course of their business, they may come across requirement for IT implementation or a business plan for investors, a feasibility study to expand their business or a market research to understand whether customers will buy a new product that they want to launch. There are other examples as well. Nowadays with tenders and RFP responses going online and exhaustive, they may find it difficult to fulfill all the section of the response because they dont have the expertise or resources to respond to the technical and commercial sections of the tender. If they feel that an app can help them to attract customers they lose interest after sometime because they may not have the time to get the features right or the cost may be just too high. These are some of the challenges that SME's can face while accessing business services.

There are solutions that are being offered online which makes it easier for small businesses to access business services. Most of these platforms or websites are offering a similar group of services such as accounting or IT implementation or Digital services, there is an attempt being made to offer a clutch of services under one roof. What it offers is a true marketplace model wherein the services are offered by a set of experts who are registered on the platform. The platform manages the entire workflow from the request being registered to the work being delivered successfully. Unlike a Freelancer or a Fiverr, these platforms work with both the service provider and the customer to ensure that the work is delivered successfully. More than a matching platform, they are a complete workflow driven platform to manage the entire lifecycle of the work. What customers get is the very best in service quality. 

The challenge to a seamless SME business service marketplace is to get the workflow right and the UI very simple. It is best to have a app accompany the website because for any business owner, it will be much easier to simply put in their requests. Business owners may not want to login and input their details through the website because they may find it too tedious. In my view this is a completely unexplored area that has scope of massive disruption. Investors are yet not completely on-boarded but the first signs of interest are there in the horizon. They are trying to figure out a successful model that can be taken as a benchmark. Something that is much more than a Fiverr or a Freelancer! It has to be a localized model that can scale-up quickly and at the same time be offered to a global clientele.  It also has to be a model that is sustainable and can deliver RoI that are logical.

Another challenge that I see in this model is matching the time and remuneration that can be achieved from a single task. The unit metrics in this model is an extremely important factor. What do you think would be the ideal cost that a small business will be ready to pay for creating an app? Please let me know and I will share my own experiences on the price sensitivity issue especially in India.  No, not everything can be done in 5000 rupees. I am sorry! It takes effort and the service provider will have to be compensated for this efforts and the platform needs to have a reasonable margin. After the work is done you cannot tell the interior designer that “Well I could have done something similar and my labor contractor could have done something similar with my own idea”. Then why did you ask me for doing the interior design?

Another challenge is that any business service except critical ones like Accounting and anything related to legal or IT does not get the attention of business owners because they think that its like the icing on the cake and not the cake. This is especially true in India but the mindset is changing as digital is taking the business world by storm and SME’s are no exception. I think that we are almost at the threshold of that period, when the demand for business services will jump manifold and business service marketplaces will be in demand to fulfill those requirements.