• SIMPLIFY. EXPAND. GROW.

    SIMPLIFY. EXPAND. GROW.

    SMB. CORE MIDMARKET. UPPER MIDMARKET. ECOSYSTEM
    LEARN MORE
  • ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

    SMB & Midmarket Analytics & Artificial Intelligence Adoption
    LEARN MORE
  • IT SECURITY TRENDS

    IT SECURITY TRENDS

    SMB & Midmarket Security Adoption Trends
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • CHANNEL PARTNER RESEARCH

    CHANNEL PARTNER RESEARCH

    Channel Partner Trends
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • FEATURED INFOGRAPHIC

    FEATURED INFOGRAPHIC

    2024 Top 10 SMB Business Issues, IT Priorities, IT Challenges
    LEARN MORE
  • CHANNEL INFOGRAPHIC

    CHANNEL INFOGRAPHIC

    2024 Top 10 Partner Business Challenges
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • 2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    SMB & Midmarket Predictions
    READ
  • 2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    Channel Partner Predictions
    READ
  • CLOUD ADOPTION TRENDS

    CLOUD ADOPTION TRENDS

    SMB & Midmarket Cloud Adoption
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • FUTURE OF PARTNER ECOSYSTEM

    FUTURE OF PARTNER ECOSYSTEM

    Networked, Engaged, Extended, Hybrid
    DOWNLOAD NOW
  • BUYERS JOURNEY

    BUYERS JOURNEY

    Influence map & care-abouts
    LEARN MORE
  • DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

    DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

    Connected Business
    LEARN MORE
  • MANAGED SERVICES RESEARCH

    MANAGED SERVICES RESEARCH

    SMB & Midmarket Managed Services Adoption
    LEARN MORE
  • WHITE PAPER

    WHITE PAPER

    SMB Path to Digitalization
    DOWNLOAD

Techaisle Blog

Insightful research, flexible data, and deep analysis by a global SMB IT Market Research and Industry Analyst organization dedicated to tracking the Future of SMBs and Channels.
Anurag Agrawal

Accelerating Artificial Intelligence adoption within SMBs and midmarket despite budget constraints

Techaisle’s survey research of 1256 US SMBs shows that 9% of small businesses and 29% of midmarket firms are either currently using artificial intelligence (AI) or are conducting pilots. Comparing data from last year indicates an increase of 80% within small businesses and only 12% increase in midmarket firms. Answer to slower rate of adoption within midmarket firms is present in several follow-up questions. 53% of midmarket firms are finding that AI technology and expertise is too expensive and does not fit within their current budgets. In addition, 42% of midmarket CIOs say that the importance of AI, its benefits and immediate returns are not clear to the executive management thus hindering adoption. As a result, in only 10% of midmarket firms, AI has been designated as a technology priority for internal IT staff. However, of the 36% of midmarket firms that are planning to deploy AI, 31% are conducting trials. This number has nearly doubled from 17% a year ago.

For all of SMBs, data shows that use of AI is among the top 20 on the list of IT priorities for 2020. Cloud, mobility, security, managed services, HCI, unified workspace, SD-WAN, analytics, collaboration and virtualization have higher priorities. This opens up opportunities for channel partners, consultants and AI-technology suppliers to not only evangelize use cases but also build a blueprint for easy understanding, deployment alacrity of AI solutions that can deliver previously unimaginable business outcomes.

The entry point for most SMBs is when AI is embedded in cloud business applications. 25% of small businesses are contemplating using AI for HR and recruiting, a challenge that small business owners constantly face.

Not only is the adoption trend different between small and midmarket businesses, the expected benefits and application usages also differ. 41% of small businesses believe that use of AI in improving customer experience will be integral to their business success whereas 30% of midmarket firms believe that use of AI in fraud analytics and 27% in web/social media analytics will help drive better operational excellence and customer intimacy. For example, a midmarket firm that provides hostel and budget accommodations wanted to deliver analysis and personalized communication to over 500 micro consumer segments. After adopting AI tools from Persado (a marketing language cloud that uses AI-generated language for digital marketing) enabled the company to deliver more precise marketing content resulting in double-digit engagement uplifts and improved customer loyalty.

In fact, survey shows that customer experience improvements and strategic operational excellence are becoming the SMB themes for 2020 and beyond which will likely drive adoption of analytics and AI. 38% of small businesses believe that the use of AI will provide benefits to their customer support, sales/marketing teams as well as assist the entire organization in driving better business strategy. Similarly, 43% of midmarket firms believe that pervasive use of AI could provide benefits to make more informed strategic decisions.

All data and analysis in Techaisle’s upcoming research report SMB and Midmarket Analytics / Artificial Adoption trends.

techaisle us smallbusiness ai adoption trends 450

techaisle us midmarket ai adoption trends 450

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anurag Agrawal

Converged Infrastructure among Top 10 IT Priorities for SMBs and Midmarket businesses

SMB and Midmarket businesses are adopting Converged Infrastructure solutions for reduced cost and imrpoved IT efficiency. For slightly more than 1/3rd of small businesses and slightly less than 2/3rd of midmarket businesses, converged infrastructure solutions are among the top 10 IT priorities for 2018. Granted that by the end of year the actual penetration would be less but the very fact that CI/HCI has percolated to the top 10 is an interesting point to note. Cloud is everywhere, but Techaisle believes that efficiency is a reflection of the compute platform, not simply whether it is housed on-premise or at a remote facility and converged infrastructure contributes to the compute platform. SMBs are adopting converged infrastructure for one or more of five primary reasons:

  1. To benefit from integrated design and efficiency
  2. To tap into its ability to enable centralization/management of resources
  3. To capitalize on performance/time-to-benefit advantages
  4. To improve IT agility and its ability to meet business needs
  5. To respond to core requirements for cost savings and improved security.

In fact, 39% of midmarket firms said that converged infrastructure helps lower total cost of infrastructure ownership.

Research You Can Rely On | Analysis You Can Act Upon

Techaisle - TA