SMBs aren't up to scratch on technology: Study
- 25 October, 2011 17:18
- Comments 1
Australian SMBs are largely unconvinced about the importance of technology and a digital strategy, an Optus survey has found.
The report, titled How digital-ready is your business?, polled 850 people from SMBs containing 50 employees or less. It determined the level of technology adoption among Australian SMBs and how well prepared they are to operate in a digital economy.
In a sign that SMBs may need to keep up with consumers’ expectations, as well as continually embrace technology to grow their businesses, 48 per cent of Australian SMBs do not have a website for their business and more than a quarter see no value in an online presence, according to the survey.
Despite the inroads made by the cloud into the enterprise, the survey found more than 59 per cent of SMBs are still unaware or unsure about the cloud and what it offers to them.
In the mobile space, approximately half of SMBs have been quick to embrace mobility options and the majority have equipped staff with mobile phones for added productivity.
While the survey found that the understanding of PC security was strong, 21 per cent do not regularly back up data, and of those that do, 53 per cent back up on-site and eight per cent do it off-site.
With technology and network infrastructure continually improving, online collaboration has become more common place in businesses than before, though only 30 per cent of SMBs currently consider it as a necessary business tool.
Interestingly, 50 per cent of SMBs feel that they know enough about IT to make informed decisions, 43 per cent have difficulties in keeping up with technology developments, 73 per cent adopt a “wait-and-see” approach before taking up IT products and services, and 64 per cent value advice from IT experts.
Optus plans to release the report to SMBs to coincide with the launch of their free online tool to help SMBs assess the digital readiness of their business.
Nominations for the 2012 ARN IT Industry Awards open on Tuesday, June 12.
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Comments
Hilton698
The Brisbane Chapter of SMBiT Professionals (http://www.smbitpro.org) gave a series of half-day presentations in Alice Springs, Darwin, Cairns, Mackay, Brisbane and Toowoomba during November last year to SMBs in those regions about Virtualization, Cloud Technologies, Communications and Green IT. We had around 200 attendees across these meetings and the comments we received back were generally positive.
I'll agree that many SMB's don't really understand what "The Cloud" is all about - and the appalling "to the cloud" adverts on TV are sure not making it seem anything more than a toy, but cloud technology is most definitely something that will affect most SMBs in the near future in one way or another.
One thing that I find is confusing many of the SMBs we speak with is that "the cloud" is such a wide and varied beast and there are so many aspects of it that everyone seems to want to push their own barrow without considering the wider picture - and all this does is lead to confusion which then leads to disinterest.
SMBiT Professionals members and other SMB IT service providers who have a good grasp of the various aspects of what the cloud has to offer can help their clients better understand which of those aspects can be beneficial to their business and help guide their clients through the maze of cloud offerigns to come up with a plan that works well for them.
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