Tech Wallets Tighten. More SMBs (small and medium businesses) are forecasting flat or decreased IT spending for 2012 compared with 2011. To loosen the purse strings, tech vendors must deliver a rock-solid case for how their solutions help address top SMB challenges—attract new customers, grow revenues, and maintain profitability. In addition to broadening subscription-based cloud solution options (which off-load big up-front investments), more vendors will offer flexible, alternative financing to help ease the financial burden—and gain a leg up on competitors. 

 

The Progressive Class Gains Ground. Despite the projected lack of growth in IT spending among all SMBs, a distinct category of “Progressive SMBs” plan to increase IT spending. These SMBs see technology as vital for business transformation, a mechanism to create market advantage, and a way to level the playing field against bigger companies. Progressive SMBs are more likely to rate factors other than price—such as ease of customization, reputation and brand enhancement, and the ability to provide local service and support—higher than other SMBs when making technology decisions. 

 

The Social Media Divide Grows. According to our 2011 Impact of Social Business in Small and Medium Business Study, about 50% of SMBs already use social media, and another 25% plan to do so within the next 12 months. The study showed that about half of SMBs take a strategic and structured approach with social media. These “strategically social” companies use social media for more activities, employ more channels, and are more satisfied with the business results than the other half of SMBs that are still throwing spaghetti on the Facebook wall. As new social media tools—from crowd-sourced pricing to video commerce—take shape, SMB social media “haves” will gain business ground on the “have-nots” in an exponential manner. 

 

Cloud Becomes the New Normal. The results of our 2011 SMB Routes to Market Study reveal that demand for cloud-based solutions is accelerating in almost all solution areas. Areas that show the biggest potential for cloud gains in 2012 are marketing automation, business intelligence/analytics, and desktop virtualization solutions and services. Most SMBs don’t have the time, staff, expertise, or capital budgets needed for do-it-yourself IT. This makes the arguments for cloud computing—reduced capital costs, speed to deploy, and real-time collaboration and visibility—compelling.

 

Mobile Application Use Grows. In a custom study we completed last summer, SMBs indicated that they plan to significantly increase spending on mobile devices and services in the next 12 months, with the highest jump in the 5 to 49 employee size band. Some of the strongest categories for SMB current and planned mobile app use are mobile payments (52%), time management (59%), field service (59%), and customer information management (69%).

 

I'll share additional SMB technology trends in an upcoming column.