Small businesses in the dark over managed services

Small firms are in the dark over the benefits of web software

Small businesses are missing out on affordable access to enterprise applications available to them through managed and hosted services.

This was the conclusion of roundtable hosted by Microsoft, following research by the company into how small businesses use and manage their IT. The study highlighted that many small businesses struggle to compete with big firms and are unsure of how to get access to higher-quality IT services that could help them.

In the UK and around the world, small businesses form a massive part of the economic landscape, however they are often feel marginalised when competing against large multinational companies. Nearly half (47 per cent) of the small businesses surveyed said their company would be better if they had more IT resources.

The research, which studied small businesses' attitudes on a range of areas, also found that many have “IT envy” for the resources of larger businesses and the vast majority (79 per cent) think that larger businesses gain significant advantage from having access to better IT resources.

More than half (58 per cent) of small businesses said they use in-house IT skills, while 63 per cent said they believed larger enterprises with more IT resources gain a competitive advantage due to the economies of scale they can achieve.

"Despite their varying businesses and greatly differing needs, many small businesses are becoming increasingly dependent on IT and the internet for networking, communications and sales," said John Zanni, general manager, software + services industry team, for the communications sector at Microsoft.

"As they become more web-savvy, we're seeing that small businesses are starting to seriously consider hosted services to meet some of their IT needs."

Although there was general consensus that many small businesses are simply unaware of hosted services and the benefits it can provide, many actually use some form of hosting, such as email, security or web-based applications.

The report also found that 65 per cent of the small businesses surveyed would consider buying IT services on a subscription basis, such as hosted email, shared calendaring and other applications.

Although definitely not a cure-all for every business scenario, buying software on a subscription basis reduces the reliance on in-house IT skills and can offer enterprise-class security protection, as well as allowing the business to focus on its own priorities.

The fear of a lack of control was also seen as an attributing factor to slowing the adoption of managed services by small businesses, as many were wary of potential risks in handing over sensitive information to third parties.