Techaisle study reveals 80 Percent of US SMBs say Cloud Computing helps Grow their Business
San Jose, CA (PRWEB) March 25, 2014 -- Techaisle’s latest SMB Cloud Computing Adoption Trend research shows that Cloud computing – which IT suppliers often position as a means of reducing cost – is viewed by 80 percent of US SMBs as a solution that contributes to business growth. This is a huge departure from previous years when reducing cost used to be the overarching objective. It implies that cloud vendors and resellers should expand their marketing dialogue beyond the cost and CAPEX vs. OPEX motivations for cloud adoption and focus on ways in which cloud-based solutions enable SMBs to expand their reach to new markets and customers. In fact, over 40 percent of SMBs state that business agility and new capabilities are driving SMB cloud adoption.
This new trend of SMBs adopting cloud for business growth creates a “perfect storm” of opportunity for cloud computing. It satisfies the demand for new technology-enabled business capabilities such as mobility, social media, business intelligence/analytics and collaboration by providing a platform for supporting these initiatives. At the same time, as IT continues to struggle with cost control, cloud provides a clear means of reigning in CAPEX and reducing management costs.
Techaisle’s survey data shows that while there is broad recognition of the importance of business agility as a cloud benefit, a “mid-SMB” niche exists – stretching from 50-250 employees – in which IT productivity is the overarching cloud objective.
The key reasons for using cloud and benefits realized vary by size of business as well as issues that are of critical concern to SMB organizations. For example, small businesses (1-99 employees) focus tightly on business benefits: increased business agility is the most compelling cloud benefit, followed by obtaining capabilities that would have been cost/time prohibitive, reducing business process-related costs, and improving business staff productivity. Mid-market businesses (100-999 employees) also appreciate these outcomes – but the highest-ranked benefit of cloud is IT related, with “make our IT staff more productive” cited as a compelling cloud benefit by nearly 60 percent of mid-market businesses.
Drilling down into the different sizes of businesses the 1-9 micro-business group also places a high value on using cloud to reduce process costs, which makes a great deal of sense, since these tasks are likely not automated in any fashion today. Respondents in the 250-499 employee size segments prioritize use of cloud to increase business user productivity, while the 500-999 employee segments is focused on cloud delivery benefits such as capabilities/agility and IT productivity. Analyzing the data by BDMs and ITDMs, the study finds that these groups have different perspectives on how cloud delivers value to their companies.
Marketers can use this data to establish broad themes for the US SMB market, and then tailor their appeals to specific sub-segments based on demonstrated needs and expectations. For more details or to learn about Techaisle’s SMB Cloud Computing Adoption Trends report please contact [email protected].
Coverage of the report:
• SMB Business Issues, IT Challenges, Priorities
• Current and Planned Use of Cloud Computing Solutions
• Benefits & Inhibitors of Cloud Adoption
• SMB Cloud Leadership Roles: Business vs. IT Management
• SMB Cloud Future: When & how will cloud usage patterns change
• Key Attributes of a Successful SMB Cloud Solution
About Techaisle
Techaisle is an SMB IT Market Research and Industry Analyst organization dedicated to tracking the Future of SMBs and Channels. Techaisle was founded on the premise that Go-to-Market strategies require insightful research, flexible data, and deeper analysis. Understanding the value of data consistency across markets to inform strategic planning, Techaisle has remained holistic in its approach to insights and provides globally consistent SMB and Channels analysis across geographies. Techaisle’s insights are built on a strong data-driven foundation.
To achieve its objectives Techaisle conducts surveys with SMBs and Channels to understand market trends, opportunities, buying behavior, purchase intent, business issues and IT priorities. Techaisle’s SMB and Channel partner studies cover cloud computing, managed services, mobility, social media, virtualization, business intelligence, big data, networking and data centers. Techaisle offers its clients: Syndicated Research, Custom Primary Research, Consulting Engagement, Competitive Intelligence, Segmentation and Predictive Analytics services. For more information on Techaisle or its global products/services, please visit http://www.techaisle.com, and our analysts’ blogs at http://www.techaisle.com/blog
Anurag Agrawal, Techaisle, http://www.techaisle.com, +1 4084597751, [email protected]
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