After the last two years of lockdowns due to the pandemic, many mid-market entities are only starting to recover, and are realising that technology is a path to remaining competitive and bringing new business on board.

However, although the demand for new technologies is high among mid-market businesses, vendors don’t often get it right when targeting them, says Chris Larkins, Dell Enterprise Business Unit manager at Tarsus, South Africa’s leading ICT distributor.

“Similarly, mid-sized entities don’t always know which tools are the best fit for their business. They need the right partner to help them, because the survival and expansion of this market segment is essential to the overall health of the South African economy.”

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In addition, Larkins says that many game-changing new technologies have traditionally been too expensive for mid-market businesses, but this is changing, with companies like Dell Technologies focusing on this market segment with the right solutions to help these companies kick-start their digital transformation journeys.

“The benefits of digital transformation cannot be reserved for large corporates alone. Modern digital platforms and infrastructure are becoming accessible and less expensive, and are driving massive transformation for mid-sized businesses, without many of the prohibitive risks and costs there were in the past,” says Larkins.

It’s widely accepted that digital transformation is key to the changes needed to survive in today’s market conditions, and that those who don’t adopt it risk being left behind, he says. “By embracing modern technologies, mid-market organisations can enhance operations, develop new revenue streams and offer a better experience to their customers, both internal and external.”

Radical change

According to Larkins, the right technology partner can help these entities understand that the dynamic has changed radically over the last decade, and that these technologies are both affordable and easy to implement. “While technologies such as hyperconverged infrastructure, data protection, AI and hybrid cloud were very expensive, requiring significant investment and a long-term view on ROI, this is no longer the case.”

He says the time when smaller businesses sat on the sidelines while big enterprises spent fortunes on cutting-edge technologies is over. “No longer do they need to wait till a particular service or system has been commoditised enough to become less expensive, in fact, the more forward-thinking of these businesses are already seeing improvements in their operating models and economies, by harnessing hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and software-defined infrastructure to gain benefits like virtualisation and platform deployment.”

The ability to leverage powerful solutions, systems and cloud services is key to realising the potential of mid-market companies. “This will enable them to operate smoothly across geographies, to gain actionable insights from predictive analytics and make use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence and internet-of-things (IoT) solutions to lower maintenance costs and lessen downtime.”

Tarsus and Dell Technologies are working towards eliminating all these misconceptions, and helping mid-market entities rid themselves of the notion that modernisation is for large or deep-pocketed organisations alone. “What we have found effective is helping them with project-based technology delivery instead of large-scale initial investments. Many solutions today can be paid for as an operating expense or through a consumption-based model. We also offer more modular solutions, enabling them to get what they need, and build from there to allow immediate access to game-changing solutions.”

Dell’s mid-market technologies are grouped into four critical areas: firstly, modernising the business, then protecting assets with security, followed by empowering the workforce, and finally, automating IT operations.

The ability to leverage powerful solutions, systems and cloud services is key to realising the potential of mid-market companies

“Server solutions from Dell offer built-in security with exclusive capabilities such as ‘automatic Bios recovery and ‘dual root of trust’ in scalable rack and tower configurations,” he adds. “Storage solutions protect data, too, in each array across hybrid, all-flash and multi-cloud storage environments using built-in, drive-level data-at-rest encryption, and are available in a wide range of scaling storage capacities to enable the workforce flexibility that is needed today.”

In terms of hyperconverged solutions, Larkins says Dell’s offerings feature built-in security from Bios to hypervisor with protection for data in use, at rest and in motion, across cloud-ready data centres. “In addition, the solutions help simplify the threat landscape for mid-market companies’by lessening the need for multi-vendor add-on products.”

When it comes to hybrid cloud, Dell’s solutions are cloud-ready, and are able to scale to the needs of the dynamic workforce. “They also feature built-in security to protect your data no matter where it resides.”

Tarsus and Dell are uniquely positioned to help mid-market businesses on their digital transformations, so they can begin taking full advantage of the benefits this offers, he says. “Dell brings the latest and most innovative solutions across the board, while Tarsus offers the strategic guidance and expert execution that can help our partners and medium entities adopt the right transformative technologies to help them remain ahead of the curve.

“Both companies understand the dynamics of the market, as well as how mid-sized organisations can use technology to help their customers, and themselves, thrive today and into the future,” says Larkins.

For more information on Dell’s transformative technology solutions and to partner with professionals to scope and design a solution that meets the needs of your organisation’s specific objectives, reach out to Tarsus Distribution today.