Techaisle Blog

Techaisle’s survey of 1127 US SMBs, analyzed in the report US SMB & Midmarket PCaaS (PC-as-a-Service) Adoption Trends, shows that the market for PCaaS is currently at an early stage – but there is a market. The total proportion of PCs that are provisioned/delivered via PCaaS is still relatively small, but this is not a pure development market – an adoption beachhead has been established. Surevy shows that the ‘big three’ drivers of PCaaS for SMBs are cost 1/ predictability, 2/ a streamlined process for new asset procurement and 3/ the ability to accelerate PC refresh.

Roughly one-third of small (1-99 employees) businesses, and nearly 60% of midmarket (100-999 employees) firms, are aware of PCaaS as an option. This creates a sizeable potential market of potential buyers with at least some understanding of the offering. Most of these small businesses and about two-thirds of the midmarket organizations that are aware of PCaaS report plans to adopt the technology. Adoption intent increases with buyer sophistication.

The data contained in Techaisle’s recent detailed survey, US SMB & Midmarket SaaS Adoption Trends, covering over 2500 responses, with a margin of error of +/- 1.94% at 95% confidence level, paints a fascinating picture of the sea change that is occurring within SMBs, and which is reflected in SaaS adoption patterns.

Techaisle was the first to highlight and has very well documented the role of SaaS as a deepening force within SMBs. Latest survey builds on the argument and shows that Customer-focused SaaS applications are at the top of the SMB SaaS list with 76% of US SMBs planning to adopt one or more customer cloud applications in the next one year. This is line with the four pillars of midmarket digital transformation identified by Techaisle. Customer intimacy is one of the pillars.

The vision of customer-centric business has long been beyond most organizations’ operational capabilities (hence, customer segments rather than customer activities), but with increased data/intelligence and the vastly lower cost of processing, storage and applications afforded by cloud, it is becoming more attainable.

Operational efficiency, employee empowerment, customer intimacy and product innovation form the four pillars of digital transformation within US midmarket (100-999 employees) firms. Techaisle’s unique study, US Midmarket Digital Transformation Trends, provides readers with statistically-significant and current data on digital transformation. A sample of 876, outstanding for a single country, midmarket-specific research initiative, considered accurate at a 95% confidence level (19 times of 20) at a margin of error of +/- 3.3%. The study reveals details about the four foundational pillars of digital transformation along with drivers, motivations, challenges, inhibitors, and business outcomes.

The first step in understanding the potential of a technology trend is identifying the extent to which technology aligns with or supports executive ‘care-abouts’: technologies that connect directly to C-level objectives are most likely to obtain corporate support. Taken together, the size/robustness of the data makes it the most reliable source of information on digitalization adoption in the US midmarket (100-999 employees).

In 2013, during my presentation at an Intel offsite in Chandler, Arizona, one of the topics of discussion was 2-in-1, demand for which was tepid. Techaisle research had shown that PC OEMs marketers had done a good job of building initial awareness for the devices. With the notable exception of micro and very small businesses, awareness of 2-in-1s was relatively high. What was not high, was consideration and purchase preference for these devices. For two hours I presented arguments, supported by research and analysis as to why the 2-in-1 market demand was forecast to low for several years.