Techaisle Blog

They are here - Techaisle's annual SMB and Midmarket Top 10 IT Priorities, IT Challenges, and Business Issues infographics, 12th year of Techaisle tracking at a WW level, and is sought after by IT vendors, channel partners, and media. Techaisle surveyed a total of 5850 SMBs, quota sampled to ensure adequate coverage of four small business (1-9, 10-19, 20-49, and 50-99 employees), three midmarket (100-249, 250-499, and 500-999 employees) and two upper midmarket (1000-2499, 2500-4999) segments. As a result, the data represents a robust and reliable sampling of the market segment for IT products and services.

Compared to previous years, for 2022, Techaisle expanded the lists of the technology areas, business, and IT challenges studied. In addition, this year, we have also added a fourth column in the infographic – Highest Planned Adoption.

Please scroll down/read more to view and download the SMB, core Midmarket, and Upper Midmarket infographics.

SMBs are an excellent indicator to measure the economy's pulse in any country as they constitute over 90 percent of global businesses. They intricately link to large companies, government departments, and educational institutions as both suppliers and customers. In addition, a large percentage of consumers rely on SMBs for products and services that they consume within their households. Technology plays an integral part in the daily operations of SMBs across all departmental functions, including sales, marketing, operations, finance, and customer support.

Over the last three decades, the global SMB (1-999 employee size) market has been the growth engine for the IT industry at large. The path to business growth, strategy to deal with the competitive landscape, route to profitability were predictable and linear. And the way to adopting technology was also predictable and linear. The business pressures existed, but they were few and came on slowly. But it is not so anymore. Today, business pressures are increasing, coming from all directions - cash flow constraints, access to capital, competitive landscape, need for innovation, digital transformation, erratic revenue, uncertainties, the pace of technology change, and many more. A Techaisle survey found that a typical business leader deals with an average of five business pressures daily.

What is more telling is that 52 percent of SMBs deal with more than five pressures daily. These would be enough to put the brakes on any regular business operation. COVID did just that. Small businesses are struggling with revenue loss, attracting and retaining workforce, and lacking access to capital. As a result, technology has become even more important than two years ago. To manage costs, drive growth and enable resiliency, Techaisle data shows that 41 percent of small businesses have accelerated their digital transformation initiatives. However, for 55percent of small businesses IT budget is not sufficient to meet their needs. In addition, 63 percent of small businesses are actively looking for external guidance on cost-effective technology solutions.

Launched in July 2021, Lenovo's "Evolve Small" is a purpose-driven campaign centered on lending small businesses a helping hand. Founded on the principles of aid, mentorship, and community, the "hug and a hand" approach essentially focuses on three primary vital areas:

1. Financial assistance
2. Business mentoring and consulting
3. Rallying local communities to support their small businesses

The chief architects of the "Evolve Small" campaign are John Bischof (Executive Director, SMB Sales) and SMB Segment Marketing Managers, Megan Wine & Michelle Wiese.

As part of the program, Lenovo has committed US$1 million in grant funding to support BIPOC-owned (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) small businesses. To facilitate and administer the grants, Lenovo has partnered with LISC, a non-profit organization in the US and a non-profit organization in Toronto, Canada. What is unique about the grants (average of US$10,000 per small business) is that they come with business development support. Techaisle believes that business development mentoring and community outreach is essential differentiation. Techaisle data shows that small businesses prioritizing growth are more likely to thrive in today's unpredictable economy than those focusing primarily on cost reduction or other 'business as usual' objectives. Business growth is more than simply increasing the top line in the digital world – though, of course, expanding the top line is a crucial measure of success. But growth also includes the ability to reach into new markets, identify and capitalize on adjacencies, and identify and integrate with suppliers who can extend the relevance of the small business in new ways. There is also follow-up, built into the campaign, where business development organizations that partner with the non-profit, LISC, help small businesses identify the best ways to use the funds (e.g., prioritize paying off some rent or paying employees) which new technologies they need.

The campaign has been rolled out across seven geographically diverse cities, including Raleigh, Chicago, Austin, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Seattle in the USA, and Toronto, Canada.

Techaisle has released its annual research infographics on top 10 IT priorities, business issues and IT challenges of SMBs (1-999 employees), midmarket firms (100-999 employees) and small businesses (1-99 employees) for 2019. In its detailed SMB survey Techaisle investigated 21 different technology areas and several technology sub-categories, 23 different IT challenges and 21 different business issues. This is the 9th year of Techaisle’s annual survey research initiative that probes for top business issues, IT priorities and IT challenges. Tracking history provides a fascinating evolution in which new business goals drive new IT priorities and uncover challenges that must be addressed to enable progress on business objectives.

Primary research was conducted among senior IT and business decision makers from Techaisle network of 1.2M B2B IT professionals spread across 30+ countries.

There are some interesting differences in IT priorities as compared to 2018. IoT and VR/AR fell below top 10 (but still within top 15) and replaced by Voice/Digital assistants as well as Open source solutions. Across all regions (US, Europe, Asia/Pacific, Latin America) digital unified workspace and software-defined are becoming a priority for both SMBs and midmarket firms. Security many places within the top 10 IT challenges in different forms – cloud security, mobile device security, data protection/recovery/business continuity – with Cloud security as the top IT challenge.

Global SMB & Midmarket IT spend (excluding telecom services) in 2019 is projected to be US$665B and corresponding cloud spend is expected to be US$115B. Research also found that IT budget growths in 2019 will be the highest in Asia/Pacific (6.2%) and lowest in Latin America (1.8%). While IT budget constraint is not the top challenge within SMBs in the US and Asia/Pacific, it is the top concern in Latin America.

Managing data growth is continuing to pose challenge for SMBs and when probed further Techaisle research found that only 11% of SMBs and 29% of midmarket firms have evidence-driven culture with data-driven decision-making business processes in which data defines requirements or opportunities and management then determines the best option for moving forward. In the US, 17% of small business and 34% of midmarket firms consider themselves to be innovative.

2019 Top 10 SMB business issues, IT priorities, IT challenges

The subject of “IT/business alignment” has been a hot topic of debate for many years. Yet despite this interest, business and IT interests and objectives frequently diverge. To some extent, this is inevitable: the business is concerned with issues that extend beyond IT, and IT needs to manage issues that are (at least, as long as they are working) beneath the notice of most business professionals. However, today’s business environment is increasingly dependent on IT support, and IT products and services that improve productivity and efficiency or which expand market reach and potential. IT initiatives that can be linked meaningfully to broader business objectives are best positioned to attract corporate support – meaning that products and services that address key business priorities have the greatest potential for growth.

The Techaisle SMB survey, which captured the perspectives of both business decision makers (BDMs) and IT decision makers (ITDMs) in US SMBs ranging from 1-999 employees, looked at key business issues and in particular IT challenges. The list of the most important IT challenges faced by SMBs such as budget constraints and the need to control IT costs and improve justification for new IT investments are both tied to the goal of reducing operational cost, and effective maintenance of current IT infrastructure contributes to reduction in operational uncertainty, and thereby get linked to managed services.