A recent Jamaica Business Development Corporation (JBDC) survey has revealed that a moderate 32.44 per cent of respondents use digital technologies daily and understand their benefits.

This prompted renewed calls for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to leverage technology to enhance optimisation and customer satisfaction. This call to action was highlighted during the Digital Jamaica Summit and Showcase, hosted by the JBDC at the Pegasus hotel on Tuesday.

One of the panellists, Kemal Brown, CEO of Digita Global Marketing, addressed the importance of the use of emerging technologies, AI, and enhancing brand presence for MSMEs, which he notes has been slow in growth with businesses choosing to remain on their more traditional routine in business.

“People are going to lose business if they don’t adapt quick enough,” he said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer. “It’s slow because there’s an inherent, I think culturally, that people don’t adapt to technology well unless you’re first upon what we call the adoption curve. You’re somebody that’s a techie, and you’re going to jump into it.”

The observation made by Brown is that MSMEs are doing business the traditional way, which creates a gap sometimes and a hesitancy to adopt or to change because change is the largest challenge. He notes that while for the older businesses the management style is still stuck in their older a challenge in getting persons to change their mind, change their approach, change the way they engage and do things.

“If you’re selling products and it takes seven days to deliver after invoicing, but a competitor can do it in two days, you’re at a disadvantage,” he emphasised.

Brown pointed to Amazon Prime’s two-day delivery promise as a game-changer in the online shopping landscape.

“Efficiency is not just a buzzword for driving profits,” he stressed. “It’s also crucial for customer discovery and satisfaction.”

On the other hand, he noted that the younger generation is way more open to this because of their digital DNA. A recent survey conducted by the JBDC confirmed that fewer businesses were utilising technologies for optimisation, 59.09 per cent of respondents engage in creating or updating their social networking profiles.

“We will see, probably in the next generation, just a complete and more wholesome adoption for life and business of digital tools and technologies,” Brown added.

He pointed out that all technologies have a foundation for supporting specific objectives. In the marketing space, artificial intelligence has given rise to a plethora of tools, ranging from content creation to writing assistance for books and tomes. These opportunities have two significant benefits for entrepreneurs and businesses in the branding space. Firstly, AI-driven technologies have made processes hyper-efficient, reducing the need for numerous staff members to perform specific tasks as the technology works. Secondly, AI enables businesses to achieve greater efficiency, allowing them to serve more customers rapidly, thereby growing both their top-line revenue and bottom-line profits. He also mentioned that various tools and services, such as Gemini and ChatGPT, are well-known for their assistance. However, he has observed a challenge among SMEs adopting these technologies: a lack of foundational principles. For instance, ChatGPT is essentially a refined version of Google. The way you interact with it is crucial; the more specific your prompt, the more detailed and accurate the response. In other words, the quality of the output depends on the clarity and specificity of the input.

“One of the challenges is that some individuals can be passive when it comes to seeking information, expecting it to come to them rather than taking the initiative to go out and find it,” Brown told the Business Observer.

The lack of a desire to learn new technological tools coupled with the assumption that these tools are expensive and an unawareness that many offer free trials are two of the main challenges, Brown pointed out.

“There’s a knowledge gap about the tools themselves. People may hear about a tool, in passing, but assume it’s not relevant to their business. For instance, a manufacturer might wonder, ‘How can AI possibly help me?’ However, AI can help optimise workflows, scheduling, delivery schedules, and more, depending on the type of business,” he said.

The JBDC’s survey further revealed a surprising statistic: 65.07 per cent of MSMEs locally do not have a website at all. However, for those that do, Kemal Brown noted that user experience is often lacking. Many web developers focus on design but neglect to ensure the information on the website is user-friendly. Brown emphasised the importance of understanding how to build a proper website, considering factors like: what is the goal of the website, page, and each section?

“We’re not really practising effective and efficient web development and also mobile web development or progressive apps,” Brown said.

With the increasing use of mobile devices to access the web, Brown stressed the need for mobile-friendly design and a higher level of service. He highlighted that UX/UI is a separate discipline from web development, requiring expertise in scaling and arranging information, formatting and responsiveness for various screen sizes, strategic placement of imagery and text, and ensuring adaptability for different devices and access points.

The advice he gave to MSMEs was straightforward: take initiative to find solutions to your business problems. He suggested using Google to search for answers, such as typing ‘I don’t know how to manage my finances — is there an app that can help?’ or ‘How can I optimise my operations — what AI software can enhance my manufacturing cycle?’ He emphasised the importance of having a desire to learn and improve and being willing to take action to achieve goals. He noted that this desire is often missing and encouraged entrepreneurs to adopt a determination to succeed and find solutions by any means necessary, starting with asking the right questions.

Another point is to find a middle community. “You have PSOJ (Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica), you have the JBDC, and you have a tonne of different entities. You have a lot of entrepreneur organisations. And you can literally ask the entrepreneurs, ‘boy, I’m having a problem with this, you know. What can I do for this?’ And they’ll tell you,” he said.