Techaisle Blog

The first step in influencing the potential of a technology to impact business outcome is identifying the extent to which technology aligns with or supports executive ‘care-abouts’ of the SMB buyers. Technologies that connect directly to C-level objectives are most likely to obtain support. Techaisle survey data shows that digital transformation is very prominent in executive-oriented IT discussions but influencing the SMB & midmarket IT and non-IT buyer is no cakewalk. Consider these statistics from Techaisle surveys:

• 72% of SMB IT purchases are triggered by an acute business pain point & number of pain points are increasing
• 52% of SMBs are facing 5+ business challenges
• SMB IT Purchase Decision Making Unit (DMU) has grown by 250% over the last decade
• Average of 5.2 decision makers are involved in technology purchase decisions in midmarket firms & 2.1 in small businesses
• 43% of IT buyers are millennials
• SMBs have 7 distinct business processes
• Channel partner is involved at only 50% decision making stage
• 70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before first meaningful contact with a potential supplier
• 17% of SMBs use six or more information sources
• Average channel partner sales cycle is 7.7 weeks

Where, when and who to influence is a key challenge, especially when digital transformation impacts more than one buyer segment and business process.

Techaisle survey shows:

• 73% of US SMBs are using at least one SaaS application, up from 27% in 2011
• 51% of global SMBs begin their cloud journey with SaaS
• Global SMB spend on SaaS in 2018 will be US$40 billion
• Cloud is the agility platform & SaaS is a zero-friction option for automating business processes
• 74% of SMBs achieved increased business agility with connected business processes

Techaisle forecasts worldwide SMB (1-999 employee segment) IT spend will reach US$735 billion in 2021 and cross US$1 trillion in 2028, growing at 2X the global GDP rate and 3X the enterprise segment. With slightly over 72 million SMBs (excluding home-based businesses), the market segment presents itself as lucrative and yet incredibly difficult to penetrate. Within each employee-size category there exists segments by IT sophistication, cloud maturity, digital transformation strategy, SaaS adoption, cloud first to cloud selective segments. As per Techaisle survey digital transformation is on the minds of most SMBs who are expected to spend US$275 billion on DX in 2018. And 42% of SMBs have become more dependent on technology over the last 12 months for better business outcomes.

While cloud is replacing conventional data centers at the core of the network, an entirely new technology tier – “edge” – is emerging as a complementary source of IT infrastructure, supporting many innovative technologies that promise to extend the use and impact of technology into entirely new domains.

Connectedness is an intrinsic component of the edge. It applies in two directions: client devices ranging from PCs to smartphones to sensors connect to more gateways and other powerful edge systems, which process time-critical responses and then communicate data safely back to clouds at the core of the infrastructure fabric.

The edge is broad in scope and deployment. It moves with the user of a device or an appliance or a transport, it morphs when a sensor or a beacon is triggered and it can expand or change when real and/or augmented environments interact. The edge includes the devices and networks that deliver mobility to users – and it also describes the infrastructure needed to support leading-edge solutions like IoT, autonomous and connected vehicles and field-ready AR/VR systems – solutions in which devices are connected and configured to support remote monitoring/service/control, or harvesting data from one or more connected systems and applying contextual analytics to support smarter decision making, or delivering inputs needed to provide better insight into current and future business opportunity.

To be fair, many of these edge-dependent systems are still in their infancy, and will gain widespread adoption after 2018 (or potentially, at some point in the next decade). But there are signposts that we can see today, which indicate how edge resources and expectations will evolve.

One such example is found in “connected PC.” In the context of a Interwork platform in 2018, connected PC may look like an odd inclusion – shouldn’t we focus instead on growth areas like sensors or smartphones, rather than an aging device type that is being eclipsed by these newer form factors?