Microsoft Study: Cloud Levels Playing Field for Small Businesses
A new study, commissioned by Microsoft and researched by Edge Strategies, indicates that cloud usage is on the rise amongst SMBs, with paid service adoption set to double over the next five years. Apparently, there’s increasing belief in the notion that the cloud makes a company more competitive, adding features and functionality heretofore limited to the largest enterprises.
That notion is reinforced by the first statistic Microsoft shares about its study: 59% of SMBs who have already adopted a cloud service report indicate that IT provides a significant boost to productivity, versus 30% of the have-nots. Similarly, 63% of cloud adopters expect to boost sales over the next year or so, despite a sluggish economy.
The study, which surveyed 3,000 SMBs in 13 countries, attributes these increasing feelings of goodwill towards the cloud towards a desire to adopt mobile technologies and rising confidence in the state of cloud security (only 20% of respondents believed data is less safe in the cloud).
Another major theme in the report was the importance for SMBs of getting cloud services from a service provider. Less than half of all respondents said they had the know-how and resources to implement cloud services or train employees on them, making a service provider absolutely critical. Moreover, SMBs expressed a strong preference for getting all their cloud services from a single source – especially if that source is a service provider with a local presence.
Services Angle
I saved a few of my favorite statistics for last. 55% believe the cloud will power their growth, and 58% believe that working in the cloud will make them more productive. Belief is great – for example, I believe in the transformative power of the cloud for IT, as I’ve said many times.
But “belief” isn’t a business plan. Microsoft spends a lot of money marketing its Office 365 cloud productivity suite to SMBs and large enterprises alike, so I highly doubt this survey was ever going to come back with any other results. If you want to make a move to the cloud, that may well be a worthwhile move. But make sure it’s adding actual business value and that you’re not just doing it because everyone else is.
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