Putting customers at the heart of your business is essential for all companies regardless of their size. But for many small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), effective use of IT brings the opportunity to punch above their weight and compete with larger organisations, as well as with rival SMEs.

Computing recently hosted a live web seminar, in association with Oracle, on the challenges for SMEs in meeting customer demands with IT. Our expert panel answered questions from readers, and here we present their answers.

Our panel members were:

• Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent drinks.

• Daryn Mason, European head of solution consulting for Oracle CRM on-demand.

• Paul Cooper, communications director for the Institute of Customer Service.

How can SMEs use technology to compete in an international market?

RR: There have been certain things that have helped Innocent punch above its weight, to help us succeed internationally and take on the bigger guys that are out there, because we are still very much David to the Goliath of the big soft drinks companies.

The first and most important thing is to really know what you are about, to have a very simple, clear point of difference. We talk about keeping the main thing as the main thing.

There are many different words I could use to describe Innocent, but it is about keeping things natural. We have had that simple, single-minded thought informing everything we do from the beginning. The more you can simplify what exactly is going to make your company special versus all your competitors, the better.

The second thing we found really important when you are trying to go internationally is, of course, it is all about people.

Business is nothing other than a community of human beings. It is not a piece of equipment. It is not a building to work in.

The more you can surround yourself with people who are good at selling your product, the more you can engage those people, keep them motivated, make them loyal to the cause, give them a mission to believe in, the better.

The third thing is accepting that you can start small and get big. It is a very simplistic thing to say, but you have to have the belief that you can do it.

I love the fact that companies such as YouTube, Skype, Flickr – all the really big success stories of recent times – five years ago they were in bedrooms, and now they are billion-dollar companies.

Right from the outset we have always been looking at how we can use technology to hunt the human, not to replace the human; to engage with consumers, to get feedback from retailers to make sure that ordering goes seamlessly behind the scenes, that we can communicate office to office.

There are a million different ways that technology can support and enhance the human, and that is where we try to use technology to further our business internationally.

Some small businesses have gone online very successfully, but have been swamped by web enquiries and are unable to fulfil them. How can this be avoided?

DM: What technology gives us for the first time is a great leveller for small organisations to appear and behave and act with their customers as if they were a larger organisation.

But you need to be able to sort out that demand and work out who are going to be the most valued customers.

Who are the most urgent people to satisfy their demand? Which ones could be satisfied later on? If you have the right systems in place, you can start to answer these questions.

RR: I would rather be busy with trying to meet my demands and trying to cope with that, than to not have any in the first place.

You have to plan sensibly what you think you could do. But I would never shy away from having the problem of demand outstripping supply.

There will be times when you get it wrong; no business is going to get it right all of the time. It is fundamental, when you are goofing up as a business, which let’s face it we all will do from time to time, that you communicate with those people that you are goofing for.

Most people are going to be on your side if you just level with them and say: I am really sorry. If you communicate with people it makes a difference, and that is what technology can do.

What are the key technologies that can help SMEs meet customer needs?

DM: Small organisations are increasingly investing in customer relationship management (CRM).

We throw around the word CRM, but what it means is integrated sales, marketing and service in one complete package.

It gives what we call a 360-degree view of a customer that covers all interactions. At any given moment you can look at an area and say, this is the entirety of the interaction we have had recently with this customer.

What technology gives to small businesses now is choice.

Previously, to get an effective customer management system, organisations would have had to install software and needed the skills, hardware, and people to understand how that works. That sets a high entry point.

But now this software can be delivered at low cost over the internet as a subscription-based service. Businesses do not have to worry about technology anymore because they just have it delivered to them to their desk on a subscription basis.

If you are in a rapidly expanding organisation, you might need five people using the system one week, 10 the next, then 20, and so on, and on the web it is scalable without having to go out and buy more equipment.

The danger is that CRM systems end up being a good reporting tool from poor data. How do you improve staff buy-in to CRM?

PC: Data should primarily be what you want to serve the customer better.

Listen to customers to know what they think is going to serve them better and then provide the data accordingly.

This is often about hiring the right people. Maybe it is politically incorrect to say this, but some people are better than other people, and some people are a hell of a lot better than other people, and they are the ones that you should have working for you. Then you have to get those staff to understand why you want CRM.

About three years ago the whole thing was about outputting as much data as possible that nobody ever looked

at, and it was usually put together by one IT guy talking to another IT guy.

Now we are realising that the data needs to be useful, or do not produce it at all. And being able to drill down and to split it in any possible way is the secret, not just getting all of that data and saying it must be important.