SMBs Loosening Purse Strings

Downtrodden would be an apt way to describe small and medium businesses during the recent economic downturn. However, hope is emerging: a Spiceworks survey found that these companies plan to increase their IT spending by nine percent this year, compared to a measly one percent jump in 2009.Spiceworks polled more than 1,000 IT professionals and found that 43% have budget increases on the docket this year. Because of pent up demand from the downturn, companies planned to spend 30% of their increases during the first quarter of 2010. The bulk of that money (47%) will go new hardware, with four out of every five companies expecting to make hardware purchases during the year. However, small and medium businesses seem disinterested in netbooks, with only one percent of the companies planning to make such acquisitions.

Companies are being cautious with bringing on more workers. Staffing will remain the same at two out of every three companies. Smaller corporations are more prone to add staff than larger firms. Twenty eight percent of companies with less than 20 employees expect to bring in new workers this year while only 18.8% of corporations with more than 100 employees plan to do the same.

SMBs are slowing moving into the cloud computing space. One in four companies is using such services at the moment. To increase adoption, vendors will need to clear various perception hurdles: 24% of companies view cloud computing as an unproven technology, one in five is concerned about its level of security, and 12% think that vendors have to develop better Service Level Agreements.