Many SME businesses don’t have inhouse software development capability, and some expect employees with limited capacity and experience to ‘have a go’. IT policies are often not fit for purpose, procedures are often ad-hoc and undocumented and the internal IT operations and support can feel unresponsive, siloed, overwhelmed, and reactive.

Lacking access to the broad range of skill sets and deep solution expertise that effective digital change requires, many SME business remain frustrated by under-used off the shelf systems, poorly integrated point solutions, poor user experience and a monolithic inflexible architecture.

Business partnering by IT is often poor or absent, meaning the business becomes frustrated by an IT team that isn’t focussed on their priorities.

Mature SME businesses build diverse multi-disciplinary teams that can cope with the many demands of their users, or collaborate with trusted partners who offer fractional resources and solution agnostic expertise as required. Their modern IT function partners effectively with the business, helping to identify technology investments that deliver a return on investment, and are aligned to business outcomes. They outsource more basic IT operational functions where possible through wider adoption of cloud technologies and Infrastructure as a Service, in order to focus on more value adding activities. They are flexible, with a ‘can do’ attitude, appropriately balancing risk appetite with organisational agility.

Mature SMEs will have a good range of IT policies and procedures which are reviewed and updated regularly in line with business operations. Users are supported with good self-service tools and rapid proactive service delivery for their day to day needs.