Though in its early 20s, today’s mobile market is all about accessibility, connecting people by voice, email and social media anytime, anywhere. In this virtual space, technology is playing a major role in the development of process automation and the management of operations as it comes with effective solutions for small businesses.

In this context, SMS is not dead, as many have predicted, but rather a pocket-friendly and empowering element to our daily business talk. Let’s see why text messaging should be used by small businesses that plan to automate their operational processes:

1. Current Mobility wave embraces SMS automation

It was just a matter of time for mobility to go beyond a simple trend, ever since the birth of the mobile phone in 1973 when Motorola launched its first commercial handheld cellular phone. Now, mobility stands for information, convenience and social networking, all part of an on-the-go approach accessible across different screen sizes, operating systems and devices.

“Mobility started out as a way to access email, contacts and calendars, but it now extends into productivity applications and enterprise data.”

– Daniel Eckert, director and CTO of the Emerging Technologies Group at PwC

The impact of mobility has started to gain traction in the public eye during the last 10 years with the rise of e-commerce and business applications for SMEs. These applications opened the door for small business owners as well as mid-market enterprises to find mobile solutions given budget restrictions.

Though experts may have different point of views of what we can expect in the following years at least they all agree on what thing: each stage of technological development moves us one step closer towards the merge of information, people and devices – the last 40 years stand as proof.

Moreover, the current growth of M2M (machine-to-machine) communication that may use integrated SMS Gateway API benefits SMEs especially because:

• There is a growing trend for the M2M sector.
• There is a worldwide wave towards offering mobility solutions to almost any type of business and the attention on mid-market companies keeps growing.
• Consumer-lead technologies are becoming stronger, leaving behind the traditional channels between retailers and buyers – SMS is a growing choice for companies that what to communicate more efficiently.

2. SMS automation makes your business available anytime

Starting from the birth of SMS, the last 20 years have allowed individuals to be accessible at any time. This has pushed everyone to want everything instantly, thus expanding the need for accessibility from individuals to enterprises. As a result:

• Organizations are now focused more than ever on making themselves accessible to customers 24 hours a day.
• We are witnessing the rise of multiple communication channels through dynamic websites, responsive designs and mobile apps.
• As brands build their mobile presence, the use of SMS for promotions, notifications, support and internal communication increases.

3. SMS workflow automation is growing as a trend for SMEs

The maturation of machine-to-machine communication has led experts to predict continuous growth in business process automation.

According to an Aberdeen report, “Understanding the Complexity of B2B Integration: Insights for Mid-Market Leaders”, 44% of midmarket companies are feeling under pressure by the lack of business process integration, which leads to poor customer, supplier and trading partner communication.

As process automation develops, there is a clear demand for making communication simpler. SMS is one of the tools that can be easily integrated with any existing system enhancing the dialogue between staff members and customers.

In addition, global revenue for SMS/MMS security gateways is expected to grow by 55% from 2012 to 2017, according to Infonetics Research, leaving no doubts about our conclusion.

Conclusion: SMS facilitates operational efficiency

As enterprises are pushing their communication process towards wireless, mobility will enhance process automation and address operational efficiency and quality challenges faced by businesses that rely on workflow management systems. Nowadays, all of these systems include process monitoring features that use the SMS Gateway API for event notifications and critical alerts.

Given these facts, I tend to believe we will see an increase in the usage of text messaging in the small business sector as companies move towards automating their internal and external processes to increase operational efficiency.

http://www.textmagic.com/blog/top-3-reasons-sms-automation-benefits-small-businesses/