ANTenna Blog -- Services

The notion that IT systems are key to a company’s bottom line was reinforced in a recent survey that Microsoft completed of 3,193 SMBs in a cross section of private industries in 15 countries. The survey found that businesses that view IT as business enabler and use hosted services performed better fiscally than those that do not.

One surprise was that a majority (52%) of SMBs reported an increase in revenue in 2009. That number was up from the 39 percent in 2008. Another change was 55 percent of SMBs view IT as critical to their business up 20% since 2008. Of the companies that view IT as critical, 60 percent saw revenues grow over the past 12 months. In comparison only 29 percent of those who stated IT is not important increased sales in 2009.

Hosted, or cloud based computing, is gaining momentum. Awareness of hosted services is increasing with 65 percent of SMBs using hosted software to some extent compared with only 44 percent using it in the 2008 Index. Web site and Web conferencing are the two applications, which have been handed over to third parties the most often while businesses are keeping their backup, email, and server applications in house. Moving to hosted systems seems to improve a firm’s bottom line. More than 40 percent of the respondents that use hosted solutions revenue rises of 30 percent or more compared with 90 percent of respondents not using hosted technology that saw decreases in revenue.

The rise of technology has lowered the playing field so traditional barriers to entry are not as prevalent as they once were. This survey illustrates that IT can play a key role in helping companies succeed in today’s highly volatile business climate.