The
National Bureau of Economic Research tells us that the recession was supposed to have officially ended June 2009. So tell that to the unemployed and the struggling business, right?
Well there's good news according to consulting shop Techaisle. The firm's latest report says SMBs worldwide are expected to spend $444 billion globally on IT products and services in 2010, a growth rate of 5.2 percent from the same period surveyed in 2009.
"Small and medium businesses are widely considered to be a growth engine for IT vendors. However, the looming possibility of a double dip in the U.S. and other economies seems to be putting the skids on this growth market," the report's authors said, conceding potential unforeseen realities.
Unforseen realities notwithstanding, the report did take a closer look at growth among SMB by size, saying that the 50-99 employee size category will grow its spending the fastest, at 7.9 percent. Meanwhile the biggest spenders of actual coin will be the 100-249 employee size category at $100 billion.
But the next piece of data presents an interesting opportunity for small MSPs in a global marketplace. The report says, that the "silver lining is the emerging market countries where IT spending by SMBs will show a growth rate of 8.2 percent in 2010 over 2009."
SMBs in emerging market countries that Techaisle tracks will spend $45 billion on IT in 2010, the report said, identifying Brazil, Russia, India and China, Mexico, South Africa, Poland, Malaysia, Argentina, Turkey, Indonesia, Czech Republic, Thailand and Philippines.
For SMBs, even in the midst of a downturn, there are some bright spots where the barrier to entry into new markets is possible.
Posted by Jabulani Leffall on September 21, 20100 comments
The growth of managed services has spawned many ancillary sub-industries. As the old saying goes: where there's growth, there's consultants.
Okay so that's not an old saying; I just said it. Yet the arrival of consultants can be a good thing.
Take MSPexcellence, an advisory shop launched in late Sept. 2010 by two industry veterans, Todd Hussey and Dave Zwicker. Combined they boast more than 50 years of sales and marketing experience and claim to know "every business model, customer segment, channel strategy, pricing plan, branding strategy, marketing campaign, sales model and compensation plan used by global technology companies, venture backed start-ups and their MSP partners."
That's a lot and smacks of buzzword jargon. However, such experience might be good for established IT service companies looking to make a bigger foray into managed services or MSPs and VARs looking to expand their current managed services offerings.
As for IT firms just starting off, it might be better off going straight to an MSP vendor or, of course, reading this blog.
Posted by Jabulani Leffall on September 21, 20100 comments