Small businesses looking to expand their operations need to embrace technology and IT resources if they hope to succeed, an industry expert has advised.

Writing in the Independent, Roger Trapp argued that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need to work especially hard if they hope to prove successful in today's competitive markets.

Mr Trapp offered some advice to SMEs about what they can easily do to help them complete with larger organisations, and using IT and technology resources is key.

"The internet has made it much easier for start-up businesses to reach their market," he explained, adding: "On the internet, everybody is the same size.

"The internet enables small businesses to obtain the sort of national and global reach that would have been impossible just a few years ago."

Equally, Mr Trapp said that the IT technology now available to SMEs was of a far higher quality than it was a few years ago.

"The sort of computing power that was once only affordable to the largest companies is now available to smaller businesses," he wrote.

"Generally small businesses are wary of spending too much on information technology. This can lead to them adopting limited solutions that can actually impede the growth of the business."

Finally, Mr Trapp argued that it was important for SMEs to think about outsourcing when they did not have the expertise to carry out a task.

A recent report from YouGov found that more SMEs were opting to outsource IT services.