Techaisle Blog

24% of small businesses, 52% of core midmarket firms, and 54% of upper midmarket firms are in the advanced IT maturity segments. Rapid and recent digital transformation has undoubtedly changed the IT maturity curves within the SMB market. Two years ago, only 16% of small businesses were in the advanced IT segment. 24% of firms are now in the Enterprise-level IT segment within the core midmarket, up from 14%. The enterprise-level IT SMB segment is growing at 1.5X that of Basic IT, and their IT spend is 1.4X of the Basic IT segment.

Employee size segments are not the only way of addressing the SMB market because the SMB market is not a monolith. SMB market consists of many segments, each of which has its unique approach to IT adoption. Suppliers who understand the scope and characteristics of these segments can expand their target markets and develop strategies geared to reaching high-potential SMB prospects. These suppliers ultimately have access to an expanded TAM and have the insight needed to align marketing investments with priority customers. The segmentation beyond employee sizes generates the most' run rate' revenue in the IT industry. When discussing IT industry growth opportunities, the focus often turns to earlier-stage technologies. Sellers of these technologies tend to focus on advanced segments (large accounts, particularly in leading-edge industries). They generally view SMBs as a secondary market, not realizing that SMBs and midmarket firms are full of opportunities. The Enterprise IT segment may focus on the same core issues that trouble its less-sophisticated peers but at a level of complexity that is very likely unique to this segment and similar to large enterprises. Enterprise IT is also the only segment that raises the challenge of connecting cloud and on-premise environments – an essential set in creating a hybrid IT environment.

Founded by brothers Steve and Dimitri Osler in 2005 in Italy, Wildix created the industry's first browser-based Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) solution for small and medium enterprises with between 50 and 1000 employees. Deriving 100% revenue from its 1000+ certified channel partners, Wildix grew by 32% YoY with MRR at +274%. Its UCC solution is accessible with a simple click from a browser or via a smartphone App. The solution with webRTC technology has multiple integrations, native encryption, and proprietary hardware to deliver high-quality sound and video.

Techaisle's SMB and the midmarket survey show that Unified communications and collaboration are an IT priority for 68% of SMBs in the 50-1000 employee size segment. Unified communications adoption is likely to increase by 129% in 2021. Although there has been a high percentage of adoption and usage of individual components of communications and messaging, the adoption has been low when combined in one service. It has been a domain of midmarket businesses. Unified communications within small businesses has many inhibitors. At the top of the list are overall cost, lack of IT staff to manage, and lack of interoperability with other on-premise and cloud systems. Besides, similar to most other daily-use technologies, unified communications adoption suffers from internal staff resistance to learn and use. Adopting UCC solutions, like the adoption of most technology solutions, starts with a point of business pain: how can suppliers address an issue that impedes SMB business success.

Wildix is in the right market segment, with the right solution, at the right time. However, WebRTC is not a rarity anymore. Wildix may have been the pioneer, but almost all communication solution providers use WebRTC, including Wildix's main US competitors, Vonage and RingCentral. Wildix focuses on its positioning, not based on products, pricing, and features, oriented towards SMB business issues. It is a conscious shift from being features-oriented to value-oriented, which means understanding business problems, designing profitable solutions, and delivering the value that matches the SMB customer's business issues.

As a result, Wildix is becoming a sales-oriented unified communications solution and has created "boosters" for each step of an SMB's buying journey with a mission to sell growth, revenue, and productivity. All three are the top SMB business issues as per Techaisle's latest global survey. Wildix has over fifty integrations, including sales solutions such as Salesforce, Zoho, SugarCRM, Microsoft Dynamics, Teams, Poly, Freshdesk, HubSpot, InfusionSoft, SAP, and Zendesk.

Over the last year, Wildix has "invested 125,000 person-hours of over 80 developers, QA engineers, and UX specialists in launching new and enhanced products to improve its positioning in the market. WebRTC KITE, Wizyconf, Wizywebinar, x-bees, and x-caracal form the centerpiece of Wildix's sales-oriented UCC solution. The objective is to help SMBs convert strangers into customers turning any website into the core of an SMB's sales efforts.

Techaisle's Channel partner ecosystem research contains a wealth of information, a great value to partner management teams looking to validate their partner program investments' alignment with real-world conditions, preferences, and requirements. The research contains reliable insight drawn from over 2000 channel partners survey (leveraging network of 225K channel members) with channel decision-makers from firms representing five significant channel types businesses to reflect an outlook shaped by the pandemic and its impact on both the channel and its customers. There are six observations, though, that we believe will help readers to better grasp the implications of many of research findings and where changes are afoot in 2021.

1. Focus on efficiency and control

2. Hybrid everywhere

3. Data and systems of insight

4. Cloud and the transformation of business

5. Digital transformation as a key to growth/viability

6. Relationships defined by ecosystems, not discrete connections

Techaisle’s latest US, Asia/Pacific, Europe and Latin America SMB and Midmarket Analytics and Artificial Intelligence adoption trends survey research shows that although 73% of midmarket firms (100-999 employees) and 10% of small businesses (1-99 employees) are using analytics (weighted data), only 6% of small businesses and 27% of midmarket firms are highly data-driven, that is, they have an evidence-driven culture, in which data helps defines requirements or opportunities thus enabling SMB executives to determine the best option for moving forward. Majority of SMB, 54%, are rarely data-driven and rely primarily on the insights and expertise of the senior management. Nevertheless, within the next one year, 23% of small businesses plan to adopt analytical solutions beyond spreadsheets and overall 30% of small businesses plan to engage with an external professional services firms to understand how they could provide assistance to deploy advanced analytics solutions. Cloud-based analytics is being used by 57% of midmarket firms and as compared to only 14% of small business but the intent to use within small businesses is significantly high at 48%.

Within 31% of midmarket firms, IT is being challenged with demand for increased analytics. As a result, overall 35% of midmarket firms are planning to engage with professional services firms to help develop and prepare data management systems, techniques and technology.

The whole product for analytics starts with cloud. 37% of SMBs consider cloud to be an essential analytics technology but when drilled down into midmarket firms, data reveals that 30% of midmarket firms believe that large scale local storage and fast processing infrastructure is necessary for deep analytics implementation.