Digitalising your business: examples for SMEs

  • Esther Riphagen
  • Edited 24 February 2025
  • 2 min
  • Managing and growing

Do you send invoices online, or do you sell products on social media? These are just 2 examples of digitalisation. But there are other processes you can digitalise that can benefit your business. Read how the ABC model can help ypu identify the opportunities.

Digitalisation is a way to work faster and smarter. You leave manual jobs, such as creating invoices or submitting sales orders, to a computer. When you digitalise customer or revenue details, this is referred to as ‘data’. Computers are able to process data more accurately and more quickly than human beings. This helps you save money and avoid mistakes

Starting with digitalisation

The ABC model allows you to identify opportunities for digitalisation in 3 areas of your business: supply, business operations, and commerce. You decide in what areas digitalisation will be most useful. The various components of the ABC model do not rule each other out: they complement each other and impact one another. Here are some examples of the ABC model of digitalisation.

Supply

Your supply is the product you create or manufacture or the services you provide. The question is whether your supply aligns with your customers’ needs. Keep in mind what your customers want now and in the future. Opportunities for digitalising your supply include:

  • Launch an online shop in addition to your brick-and-mortar store, to ensure your product or service is available online as well.
  • Provide your services online, through webinars, or an electronic meeting.
  • If you also already operate a website or online shop, look at the visitor statistics and sales data and improve your website’s performance.

Business operations

‘Business operations’ refers to all activities and processes within your business. Digitalising these activities and processes could potentially save you a lot of time. There are different ways of digitalising your business operations:

  • Set up an online accounting system and a cloud-based cashier system. This ensures you can keep track of your data at any time.
  • Send digital invoices. This is inexpensive and works efficiently.
  • Automate stock counting, purchasing, and sales orders. This reduces the number of errors you make and saves time.

Commerce

‘Commerce’ refers to the sale of your product(s) or service(s), including interaction with your customers, marketing, and actual sales. Digitalisation in commerce tends to mean e-commerce: doing business online. Examples:

  • An online booking system. This means clients can see immediately when you have space and do not need to call you for an appointment.
  • Managing customer relations with a Customer Relationship Management system or simplified CRM system. This enables you to provide better services to your existing customers and makes it easier to recruit new ones.
  • Creating an online marketing plan.
  • Retaining customers through a business website, social media, email marketing (in Dutch), or a podcast.

Benefits of digitisation

Digitalisation offers your business several benefits, such as:

  • Digitalisation offers your company structure, allowing you to achieve the desired results faster;
  • By carrying out (parts of) your work processes digitally, you are less likely to make mistakes;
  • Communication with colleagues and customers becomes easier, because you use multiple channels (email, chat, a CRM system);
  • You save costs and work more sustainably because you print or copy less often.

Disadvantages of digitisation

Digitisation also has disadvantages:

  • Purchasing software costs you money;
  • You become (partly) dependent on technology and may lose business information in the event of an online failure;
  • Security risks may arise from data leaks or cyber attacks.

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