The AMI-Partners Blog

AMI analysts will acknowledge Information Communications and Technology (ICT) providers that effectively use social media to inform the purchase process of small and medium businesses.

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AMI will present a webinar on Wednesday, May 26, on social media and SMBs.

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Although the number of SMBs using social media has grown drastically over the last few years the industry’s understanding of what drives SMBs to uses these tools remains limited.

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Press release: The total US audio and web conferencing market was $1.5 billion in 2009, AMI research estimates.

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In addition to the well documented predictions, AMI’s team of go-to-market analysts have identified the following six (6) trends that the industry has ignored.

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The current economic downturn has forced European SMBs to scrutinize every aspect of their spending. Much has been made about how strained financial circumstances are making the predictable, regular opex outlay of “in-the-cloud” IT services propositions more attractive to SMB decision-makers. Certainly AMI is seeing this reflected in the uptake of Remote Managed IT Services (RMITS), which has experienced a spurt in growth during the last few months (see AMI’s recently published report on The Emerging SMB Managed Services Market Opportunity & Ecosystem in EMEA, September 2009).

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Since the start of the downturn there were signs that this would happen.

Back in Oct/Nov 2008 timeframe we started seeing price (as a purchase trigger) shift a bit in terms of importance. Don’t get me wrong, price was still important, but it was starting to become part of a bigger story about the real reason to purchase IT for SMBs. Price, and even more so promotion, dropped in double digits (YoY) for key reasons to purchase IT like PCs. As small and medium businesses started to first evaluate where they could cut costs (e.g. headcount and travel) they started to look at IT investments in the context of fulfilling on other needs such as helping them reduce telecommunications spending, improve productivity so they could get more work done with fewer people. The story became bigger than just price/promotion. SMBs wanted more from their IT purchases, but with clear ROI that mapped directly to running their business.

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