The AMI-Partners Blog

New York, New York – December 14, 2011 – Despite lingering uncertainty in the eurozone, German small businesses (SBs, with 1-99 employees) reported modest gains thus far in 2011. While SB sentiment still reflects concern about economic conditions, most are planning to hire employees and invest in information and communications technology (ICT) solutions in the coming year, according to AMI’s 2011-12 Germany Small Business Market Opportunity Assessment report. Principally, small businesses are spending a significant portion of their ICT budgets on mobility and related services.

Read the rest here.

Sales at U.S. retailers increased a seasonally adjusted 0.5% in October 2011, indicates the monthly retail trade report released by the Census Bureau early Tuesday. Retail sales, making up nearly half of all consumer spending, serve as a major indicator of consumer spending trends.  While September retail sales grew at a higher month-to-month rate of 1.1%, October results were still ahead of analysts’ estimates of 0.2%. Although consumer sentiment continues to be undermined by high unemployment and the European debt woes, American confidence is reflected in the data.

This is a good sign for SMBs, many of whom rely on consumer discretionary spending for a portion of their revenues. A separate report released Tuesday indicates a 0.3% drop in wholesale prices—the biggest decline since February 2010—which indicates a slowdown in fuel-driven inflation pressures, and means more buying power for consumers. According to AMI-Partners, nearly 80% of U.S. SMBs feel that economic conditions will get better or stay the same over the next 3-6 months. As economic conditions continue to gain traction in the second half of 2011, there appear to be promising signs for improved U.S. SMB sales and overall business conditions.

This posting does not necessarily represent the opinions, recommendations or strategies of AMI-Partners.  Monik Sheth is a Market Research Analyst at AMI-Partners, and can be reached at MSheth@ami-partners.com.

A few months ago I wrote about HP unveiling a new line of business class All-In-One PCs and how they allow channel partners (ISV’s  in particular) to customize software for the user friendly device. At the recently concluded Microsoft World Partner Conference (WPC), HP, Sony and several other vendors showed off their latest All-In-Ones. Here’s an interesting article from CRN summarizing the All-In-One displays at WPC: http://bit.ly/mV72Tl

I, and several co-workers, took a hop, skip and a cab ride over to the Cloud Computing Expo 2011 in New York City last week.  The speaker for the general session on “War in the Clouds: Are you Ready?” was quite grim (IMHO), but posed a very provocative question, “How expensive is your data loss?”  I immediately thought of the many SMBs (small and medium businesses) worldwide in our annual surveys that lost company data and/or experienced a security breach.  Needless to say, I proceeded to place a value on “data loss” once I returned to my desk… [Read more →]

A post on the Forbes magazine blog explains why “Obamacare” is working. The post explains that in the first quarter of 2011, people under the age of 26 took out health insurance in record numbers. This means a broader, healthier pool will share the burden of the old and ill:

Because the under 26 crowd tends not to get sick, adding them to the insurance pools helps bring the very balance that was intended by the new law.  The more healthy people available to pay for those in the pool who are ill (translation- the older people), the better the system works and the lower our premium charges should go.

This translates into good news for small businesses:

Meanwhile, things continue to improve on the small business front where business owners are being heavily incentivized to offer health care benefits to employees.

As I wrote in January, there has been a significant uptick in small businesses taking advantage of the tax benefits offered by the ACA to provide health insurance to employees where they previously did not do so.

The full post can be read here.

AMI has a new blog on SMB marketing:

New York, New York—May 26, 2011— Total marketing spending by U.S. small businesses (SBs, or companies with fewer than 100 employees) will expand in 2012, as an increased number of firms invests in advertising and promotional activities. According to New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc., overall spending is expected to grow 4% rebounding from 2010 recessionary lows.

The full blog can be read here.

AMI has a new press release (this one from last week):

New York, New York—May 18, 2011— On March 20th, AT&T announced its plans to acquire T-Mobile. Prior to the pending acquisition, the SMB market for wireless services in the U.S. had been shared by Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile—with market shares of approximately 32%, 28%, 12% and 8%, respectively (with any remainder captured by smaller regional or local providers). The acquisition creates a wireless services market with two dominant providers that together serve three out of every four SMB customers.

The full release here.

Information is free. Word of Mouth is priceless. If only we could reconcile the two to place a bottom-line value on social media.

How important is social media to your business? AMI’s 2010-2011 SMB Social Media Study estimates that 4.8 million SMBs in the U.S. use some form of social media for business purposes. From brand preferences to escalating the purchase process, AMI projects that by 2013, social media messaging will impact $53 billion in annual SMB ICT spending.

Last night at the Brand Advocacy Series sponsored by Zuberance, social media panelists from JetBlue, Microsoft, Big Fuel and Zuberance weighed in on the social media monetization game. Namely, how can we quantify brand advocacy to determine sales? The consensus: WE DON’T KNOW. What we can do, however, is glean the relative importance of brand advocacy through the quintessential marketing question:

How likely are you to recommend this product to a friend?

Beware of anyone claiming to measure how effective this gauge is. The truth is, we don’t really know that either. But it’s the best we’ve got. A 2010 report from Forrester determined that 18% of consumers trust bloggers for product recommendations, while 92% trust brand advocates.

Brand advocates will continue to be trusted so long as they are transparent. While it’s important to thank a brand advocate, it should never be a quid pro quo. You wouldn’t send someone fifty bucks to recommend you for a job. The same goes for online advocacy.

How do you create brand advocates among SMBs? Explains Umang Shah of Microsoft, it’s important to understand what matters to your customers. TALK to them. Social media, however, can only facilitate the dialogue. Through consistent outreach and engagement, you can identify your customers’ needs to make them better at their jobs.

Your Universe is Not the Universe.
There’s comes a caveat with every Next Best Thing in social media measurement. Relative importance scores are just that: relative. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Net Promoter Scores should measure value, not through a comprehensive landscape appraisal but by sifting through the granular and placing context.

Sound fuzzy? It sure is. Nobody really knows how to effectively measure social media. We do, however, have some good ideas.

It’s hard to turn on the TV, open the newspaper to the technology section, or visit your favorite technology web site without seeing an article or ad for tablet PCs. With the latest release of Apple’s iPad 2 in the United States on March 11^th and sales skyrocketing, it makes you wonder where do SMBs go from here? Industry estimates for 2010 tablet PC sales to both consumer and business are around 17 million. The consumer space has dominated the tablet market to date while businesses quickly adjust their PC strategy to account for new tablets. AMI estimates that worldwide tablet shipments to SMBs accounted for approximately 6-8% of all tablet shipments, with an overwhelming majority coming from North America and Western Europe.

[Read more →]