An estimated 3 million Small and Medium sized businesses in India is now showing the way to one another, and building an environment of mutual busines...
An estimated 3 million Small and Medium sized businesses in India is now showing the way to one another, and building an environment of mutual business prosperity. It is like the Domino effect dominated by circular dependency: SMEs are applying use of modern amenities and systems for their growth and their growth is a sign for companies to create products specially focused on them, and thus the cycle continues.
In a period where India is projected to be on a brink of economic failure by certain financial experts, the group of SMEs will self sustain, if they decide to automate their office processes. And one of the methods is the use of biometric systems. Now, one of the major problems which have always stumped the world of SMEs is how to manage their workforce with perfect transparency, trust, and the least of worries. There also have been doubts on the amount of work an HR team needs to do at the end of every month while calculating their payroll, followed by arguments from the employees regarding their actual number of work hours. The problems multiply and look even more challenging when you’re a small company and your HR team is used to multi-tasking. The answer is to automate. Why remain in the time warp when our contemporaries in the western countries have successfully implemented automation products like biometric attendance management systems?
Most of our large enterprises have already embraced automation, while there are a number of progressive SMEs and start-ups who look beyond the initial small investment and are able to paint the true picture. But the number ‘3 million’ is not that significant because of these modern thinkers, it is significant because of our traditional and conventional small companies who have just started to think out of the box. And hence, it’s now the turn of modern technology experts to create products which will suit these small companies while causing no holes in their pockets.
Technology is here!
And some of them have innovated. Let us talk about one of the major products- use of Biometric Identification for Employee Attendance management. Recently we heard the Gadget-guru Rajeev Makhni speaking on how it won’t be more than 2 years before Visiting Cards will become obsolete and there will be NFC phones replacing the concept of contact exchange. Similarly, the use of Employee cards and Card identification systems to record employee attendance are on the way to becoming a thing of the past. And smart technology has enabled the start of this process.
Today, we have Biometric systems which carry your identification in your body- an identification which cannot be replicated or used for proxy, an identification which cannot be easily misplaced or displaced. And add to it the fact that today some of the high end systems today are faster than a card reader; while accuracy and durability are at the highest standards.
Fingerprint scanners, a few years ago, were never able to give you accurate results and it was easy to fake a fingerprint. World is no more the same with advent of smart, tamper-proof, scanners which are able to give an accuracy of >99.99% and verification speed of less than 1 sec. There are some scanners which identify a user’s finger not just by the curves and grooves on it but also by the heat being imparted to the sensor. Thus, this ensures zero possibility of proxy or fake identification. But more importantly, the design of these fingerprint terminals is also done with focus on aesthetics.
Some of us may remember Steve Jobs saying that Technology is driven by Art. He changed the meaning of technology by giving a new-found importance to looks and presentation. Today, we have some fingerprint identification products reciprocating the same feeling. Aesthetic, operationally accurate Fingerprint terminals, combined with flexible and interactive software, signify the innovation being spearheaded by brands like Incept.
And this time, the technology is only for the SMEs! Companies like Incept focusing on Biometric Products are dedicated towards such efforts.
When a product does away with features which are redundant for SMEs, though the same may be useful for large companies, and reflects a software and hardware which are simple and extremely easy to use and operate; we know it’s ready for use in the small business world. And this is exactly where the technology has been ingenious. It needs to be even more novel because the time is right for the creator to keep in mind the end target user. And this time, the end user segment is vast, bigger and more powerful than ever- it’s the great Indian SME.
The first domino in the chain has been set push by the use of technology, and the push is now affecting even those parts of India which have remained obscure. This push will come back as a full circle thus boosting the economy to multiplied heights- all we need to do is keep on believing in the combined power of SMEs.
