A new survey of small and mid-sized businesses in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and United States by Analysys Mason suggests post-pandemic technology priorities will focus on the ability to sustain operations remotely. That means higher spending on mobility services, information technology support for remote workers, more use of cloud applications, replacing desktop PCs with notebooks and tablets, as well as boosting fixed broadband connectivity.
The survey also shows what you might have expected: firms tried--when possible--to continue operations remotely.
“The most urgent priority for many SMBs is to ensure that their business can continue to operate remotely for as long as necessary,” said Analysys Mason. “This includes improving mobile and fixed communications for remote employees.”
Some 38 percent of SMBs in the United States, for example, prioritize mobile connectivity and 33 percent of SMBs in the United Kingdom prioritize fixed connectivity. Ensuring that all of their IT assets can be managed from the cloud will be another key focus, particularly for medium-sized firms (36 percent) and small businesses in the U.S. (36 percent) and the U.K. markets (33 percent).
Providing remote IT support for their remote employees will be increasingly important for mid-sized firms (38 percent) and SMBs in the United States (36 percent).
5G adoption was cited as important by 26 percent of Australian SMBs and 29 percent of U.S. SMBs. some 25 percent of Australian SMBs also plan to focus on adopting cloud infrastructure services or cloud based software (SaaS) solutions in the next 12 months.
Firm tactics have varied by the severity of revenue decline. Hospitality firms have been hardest hit, while financial insurance real estate were the least affected, along with healthcare. FIRE is among industries where remote work is easiest to achieve.
Likewise, firm responses largely correlate with industry ability to continue normal operations while workers are remote. The biggest single change most firms took was to increase use of collaboration tools. Some 35 percent to 45 percent of firms report having done so.
Adoption of all other technologies increased, but generally not more than 15 percent. The survey also suggests that firms will tend to keep using those new tools once the pandemic has ended.
Definitions always are crucial when examining the small and medium business communications market. Analysys Mason uses a definition of “small business” including all entities with up to 99 employees. The firm defines a “medium” business as an entity with between 100 and 999 employees.
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