Easy Office Phone Reveals Top Small Business Trends Driving MSPs in 2015
San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 27, 2015 -- Easy Office Phone, the leading provider of cloud-based business phone services, shares its forecast of top small business trends driving Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in 2015. Easy Office Phone conducted interviews with MSPs in its extensive Partner network across various industries – for example, IT, healthcare, financial and non-profit – to identify the top communications and IT trends on the horizon with small to medium businesses (SMBs). These trends will directly drive MSP strategies this year.
According to the research, the following trends will significantly impact MSPs in 2015:
• SMBs will show greater demand for disaster recovery solutions: Until recent years, there was a perception that disaster recovery (DR) solutions were only needed at the enterprise level – the vast majority of SMBs were uninterested in investing the resources needed to develop and test disaster recovery procedures. SMBs are now adopting server virtualization at a faster pace than enterprises, however, and are thus realizing the need to have a disaster recovery plan in place for their assets. SMBs are showing more receptiveness to DR investments with a focus on building truly innovative business continuity solutions.
“With a little more education, companies can understand that ‘natural’ disasters are only a portion of what can affect their business. They must now prepare in advance and essentially be assured of no downtime in the case of a disaster – whether it’s physical or virtual,” said Dale Shulmistra, Technology Strategist at Invenio IT. “Although we’re not there yet in terms of awareness, there’s been a steady improvement in SMBs recognizing the need for and value of continuity solutions. The corollary effect is that these solutions are more and more accessible to SMBs.”
• SMBs will continue shifting to the cloud, but will adopt a mixture of public and private cloud solutions: Companies will continue to migrate to public cloud solutions due to the many benefits they provide, including cost-effectiveness, improved quality of service and performance, and gains in agility and speed in implementation of solutions. However, many mid-size businesses have not yet completely transitioned to cloud computing due to fears about cyber security, loss of control of their data, and sharing their data space within a public cloud solution. Companies that have specialized Line of Business Apps (LOB), compliance requirements or sensitive customer data need the redundancy and uptime of a public cloud solution, but the security of a private network. In 2015, prices will drop for online storage and data transfers, which will cause SMBs – particularly those that prefer not to use a public solution due to risks of sharing physical resources – to take a second look at hosted private cloud solutions.
“Due to needs for compliance standards within many verticals, and possible increased compliance standards in new verticals, the threat of major hacks from the organized crime syndicates of hackers is imminent,” says Victor Liu, President at LinkHigh Technologies. “The need for a hosted private cloud solution will become essential for companies where security is paramount.”
• Security Practices will Evolve: With a large number of SMBs planning to implement both public and private cloud solutions in 2015, it has become critical for these businesses to protect and secure their data from internal and external threats. In years past, a hacker needed to gain access to a company’s firewalls and then tunnel his/her way into the network and servers. Now, the hacker can simply send an email with a link that can download and install applications on a laptop or smartphone without the user’s knowledge, and easily gain complete access to a company’s network. This new reality will cause not only enterprises, but also SMBs to evolve their security practices to protect their systems.
“Every few weeks we hear in the news about companies whose data has been compromised due to hacks or carelessness. More companies and users are moving towards a mobile and cloud environment to save costs and become flexible, but the risk of the data being compromised has increased significantly since most of the data resides on or is accessible by laptops, tablets and smartphones these days,” said Kartik Nagpal, IT Director at FlashByte. “It’s important for businesses to discuss these issues with their MSPs and help them implement a process and/or services to prevent this from happening. Implementing a mix of local and online/cloud services as well as security protocols to help prevent, deter, or mitigate these types of issues is becoming a standard practice.”
Carl Watene, Vice President of Sales and Channel Development at Easy Office Phone, envisions a game-changing shift in the SMB space in regards to their approach to business continuity and security. He states, “The growing dominance of cloud-based business solutions, coupled with technology firms shifting their business models from IT to MSP, will mean that end-user companies of nearly all sizes will have access to and will leverage industry-leading, full-spectrum business continuity and security strategies.”
About Easy Office Phone
Easy Office Phone provides cloud-based business phone service to companies of all sizes. Consistently ranked among the top providers in North America for customer satisfaction, Easy Office Phone offers cost savings over traditional telecom, an incredible Hosted PBX feature set, friendly customer support and a reliable continent-wide network. Customers can control their service from anywhere, at any time, via a user-friendly web interface. For call centers, the service offers powerful call queuing along with extensive tracking and reporting tools. The company's Partner Program lets technology firms offer enterprise-grade Hosted PBX to their own clients, opening up new revenue streams.
Carol Lee, Affect for Easy Office Phone, http://www.easyofficephone.com, +1 (212) 398-9680, [email protected]
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