Software as a service most likely to see take up from SMEs

That’s one of the central findings of a global study carried out for Microsoft, which aimed to how small businesses use and manage their IT. The research also highlighted that many small businesses struggle to compete with big companies and are unsure of how to get access to higher quality IT services. Government support is widely used and well-received, but in some cases, is described too limited. Microsoft finds that despite global concerns about an economic slowdown, most SMEs reported good performances for the past year, with 39% showing growth and 36% stating that they had remained steady. Interestingly, the research highlighted that emerging markets are outpacing western countries in terms of new technology adoption. For example, about 87% of Russian small businesses have branded company email, while 63% have a customer database and an above average 24% use mobile email. Similarly, Russian small businesses are the most likely to have IT (97%), while 91% of US small companies are IT users. Meanwhile, 67% of Chinese small businesses use social networking applications to talk to customers and 57% use them for promotional purposes. That compares with just 26% and 24%, respectively in the UK. Software and Services Industry team, for Microsoft: “As [SMEs] become more web-savvy, we’re seeing [them] starting to seriously consider hosted services to meet some of their IT needs. At this time of economic uncertainty, the benefits of buying IT services on a subscription basis become ever more apparent.”