Smart Business Day 2023 Recap: Opportunities for Small and Medium Businesses

In the past, small and medium businesses (SMBs) struggled to compete with larger enterprise companies. Limited budgets and resources kept SMBs at a disadvantage. Today, all this has changed, thanks to cloud technology. Amazon Web Services brings the power of cloud to SMBs, offering the most comprehensive—and widely used—cloud technology, with more than 200 fully featured services from data centers all over the world. On May 10, 2023, we held Amazon Web Services Smart Business Day , a free virtual event for SMB business leaders and IT professionals who want to become more familiar with Amazon Web Services’s cloud offerings. The 10+ sessions were geared toward those not yet using Amazon Web Services who wanted to learn more—as well as current Amazon Web Services customers hoping to optimize their existing infrastructure.

An introduction to what makes an SMB a smart business

The conference started with a keynote address led by Claire Gribbin, the Head of WW SMB Segment at Amazon Web Services. Gribbin covered Amazon Web Services’s strategic framework for SMBs: M.O.M., which stands for Modernize, Optimize, and Monetize. Simply put, this refers to updating the technology on which SMBs operate, improving internal processes, and uncovering new ways to increase revenue. In her address, Gribbin explained how focusing on these three topics can help SMBs create a culture of innovation, attract the best talent, grow their customer base, save money , acquire measurable data , and more.

How Amazon Web Services enables SMB customers to transform the way they do business

The keynote was followed by a customer panel , which broadly covered why businesses run better in the cloud. Afterward, participants split off, joining either the technical track, which did a deep dive into the nitty gritty of cloud architecture, or the business track, which focused on leadership topics. The technical track sessions included “Learn how Dragonfly migrated to a cloud-native architecture, while continuously innovating with Amazon Web Services” and “Curantis addresses the challenges of complexity in data with Amazon Web Services.” The business track included sessions like “Recession-proof your business with Amazon Web Services Migration and Modernization Acceleration Program” and “LoanPro simplifies the complex with Amazon Web Services.”

In addition to the sessions, attendees benefited from a live Q&A with Amazon Web Services experts, a plethora of customer success stories, and Amazon Web Services Training and Certification opportunities. Some of the sessions even had built-in rewards. For instance, the business track session with Amazon Web Services customer Jaggaer covered how the company used Amazon Web Services infrastructure to optimize. Attendees were also eligible for a free business value and technical assessment, courtesy of an Amazon Web Services Partner, which would act as the first step to helping create a customized migration plan.

The value of technology partners for resource-strapped SMBs

Speaking of partners, attendees were also introduced to one of Amazon Web Services’s superpowers: the Amazon Web Services Partner Network . Not sure what a tech partner is? While Amazon Web Services Cloud infrastructure provides most of what customers need to succeed, we also believe that it is our partners who have the skills, knowledge, and resources to truly help our customers who have limited in-house IT staff. This was especially apparent in our business track session, “Mission Cloud helps COMPLY save $460K USD on Amazon Web Services.”

Cristian Torres Salamanca, a Sr. Partner Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services in conversation with Helen Johnson, CTO of COMPLY, during Smart Business Day 2023

In this session, attendees learned how Amazon Web Services customer COMPLY found itself in a common—yet scary—conundrum. After having acquired new companies, costs were quickly escalating. Mission Cloud, an Amazon Web Services Partner familiar with this situation, was able to step in and help before things got too complicated. COMPLY was ultimately able to save hundreds of thousands of USD. This session helped attendees think about how they could work with Amazon Web Services to find the right technology advisor themselves—or better use the one they already had.

Attendees also learned about other resources that could help them connect with fellow SMB leaders and garner support, such as the Amazon Web Services Connected Community and the Amazon Web Services Smart Business Hub . The SMB Solutions Library , which Gribbin mentioned in the closing keynote, is a curated library of easy-to-deploy solutions built specifically for SMB customers and their partners.

Next steps

If you weren’t able to make this year’s event, you can register to watch the sessions on the Amazon Web Services Connected Community , a free resource where you can find on-demand training about the cloud and digitization as well as exclusive offers just for SMBs.