“Technology will begin to be available to assist the world’s smaller businesses instead of just the big companies.” TECH MEANT FOR SMBs Small businesses that work with the major players in tech solutions can risk being overlooked, unable to develop productive relationships with providers and receiving limited support and cookie-cutter service. “Working with larger providers may not be a great experience for a small business in terms of time and return on investment,” says Dennis Oates, chief logistics of cer at Sendle, a shipping company focused on small businesses. Large tech solutions providers may say they have a product designed for the small market but typically those products are not meant for true small companies. “Bigger companies usually don’t understand the mentality of how a small company works,” notes Sam Polakoff, CEO and founder of BrillDog, which offers a supply chain management system designed for SMBs.
While vendors that serve large businesses naturally are going to
The key is nding solutions that are designed with SMBs in mind, allowing them to adopt and use tech tools without breaking the bank or over-committing precious personnel. “Technology is such a huge piece of smaller businesses thriving, but it has to be the right kind of technology,” says Lior Elazary, CEO and co-founder of California-based inVia Robotics. But many technology solutions are out of reach for small businesses, particularly those in the supply chain. “When you have fewer than 100 employees, where do you go?” asks Muf e Alejandro, president of Jan-Al Cases, a Los Angeles- based manufacturer of custom road and shipping cases. In particular, small businesses do not have the volumes to attract competitive pricing for many solutions. However, conditions will improve for small businesses in the coming years. “We’re about to go through a big revolution in technology that will make programs more accessible for small businesses,” Alejandro predicts.
emphasize those more lucrative clients, solutions providers that focus on SMBs have already committed to serving smaller businesses rst. The challenge that providers such as Sendle are focused on is how to provide small businesses access to the technology they need to compete. “How do you level the playing eld between what large customers have access to and what small customers have access to?” Oates asks. For providers, serving SMBs may offer challenges, but it also is an approach rich with possibilities. Smaller businesses are often open to providers who can equip them with the same advantages that larger, more sophisticated shippers have. “Small companies want to focus on the product they’re developing and selling,” Oates says. “They don’t want to be shipping experts. They’re ready for help.” AUTOMATION AND WAREHOUSE OPTIMIZATION The pandemic and the accompanying explosion in e-commerce—alongside a widespread labor shortage—has made automation increasingly valuable to businesses, including SMBs, says Elazary. Automation allows operations to do more with fewer team members— especially valuable in the current labor climate—and sharpen the performance of the staff who work in tandem with these tech solutions. Making the warehouse more ef cient through automation and other tech solutions allows small businesses to concentrate on value-added services and building the business. However, for small businesses, robotics solutions can be a strain on resources and an unproductive cost, Elazary says. A robotics-as-a-service approach can serve as a potential solution for SMBs, making it more viable and economical. In that arrangement, a provider such as inVia maintains the robots and determines the appropriate number
Technology-based solutions such as robotics can help small and mid-size businesses find eciencies in key elements of their supply chain, such as in the warehouse.
146 Inbound Logistics • January 2023
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