By Sumathi V Selvaretnam
Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are looking towards IT solutions such as virtualization and software-as-service (SaaS) to cut costs and grow their business, says a new study by Microsoft.
The Microsoft SMB Insight Report found that SMBs are investing in technology to overcome hurdles like declining revenue, competition from larger businesses and general economic difficulties.
Fifty percent of SMBs identified virtualization or IT consolidation through a small or midsize server as the technology most likely to lower costs.
Eighty-six percent of SMBs are expected to deploy SaaS by the end of 2009 up from 66 percent at the beginning of the year. Hosted services are preferred by such companies as they are easy to set up, save space and provide easy accessibility from any place.
More than half of the respondents also predicted an increase in the number of SMB workers who will work remotely. Sixty percent felt that such remote workers will be given bigger roles and responsibilities. Correspondingly, respondents felt that this would create an increase in demand for mobile solutions.
Overall, fifty-five percent of the respondents said that they would continue to maintain or increase their IT spending year over year.
According to Access Markets International (AMI)-Partners, SMBs account for 90 percent of the world’s workforce and more than half of its gross domestic product.
“Small and midsize businesses play a critical role in the world’s economy and are often the first to emerge from periods of economic uncertainty because of their passion, resiliency and innovation,” said Eduardo Rosini, corporate vice president for the Worldwide Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners group at Microsoft.
Some 600 Microsoft Small Business Specialists from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Brazil participated in the study.
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