• Nearly a quarter of SMEs admit that limitations on IT budgets run the risk of having a negative impact on the business through loss of competitive advantage (23%), deterioration in system reliability or increased downtime (41%), increased maintenance costs for legacy systems (25%), more IT security problems (16%), and having to run unsupported applications (23%).
• And while 69% admit that a substantial systems outage (two to three days or more) would have an extremely or very disruptive impact on the business, they are failing to put in place the key building blocks required.
• Nearly a fifth (19%) of SMEs have made no substantial investment in IT for two to three years.
• SMEs are undermining the value of any existing investments by failing to undertake adequate support and maintenance, with 26% of organisations with under 250 staff, spending less than £10,000 each year.
• Poor back up processes for hardware or software failure are endemic with only just over half (57%) of companies employing under 250 people, putting in place a robust disaster recover plan.
4 JUNE 2009: ERP and CRM consultancy, Ardent Solutions, announces the result of the Ardent Solutions SME Business Technology Report; a survey conducted in April 2009 by Redshift Research across 250 decision makers in UK SMEs across the manufacturing, pharmaceutical & medical products, private healthcare, financial services, energy and environment, and wholesale & retail distribution sectors.
The research shows that in order for SMEs to keep up with the pace of technology change, and gain competitive status within their industry, investment in IT must continue as well as effective management and planning of IT across the business.
This lack of planning and IT commitment is illustrated by only 65% of companies employing over 250 people, and 31% employing less than 250 people, having a full-time, in-house dedicated senior IT role – the rest rely on the part time attention of the MD, FD, operations director or another director-level person.
As a result, SMEs are not only compromising existing investment but failing to keep up to date with technology that could transform the cost and value of IT to the business: as few as 23% of SMEs said they were very familiar with the concept of Software as a Service (SaaS).
Andrew Watkinson, Managing Director of Ardent Solutions, comments, “The pace of technology change is escalating on an almost daily basis. In a business world that is, now more than ever, focussed on remaining competitive and sustainable it is vital that SMEs embrace alternative methods of not only keeping up with the changing face of technology, but staying ahead of it.”
However, despite only less than a quarter of SMEs declaring their familiar knowledge of Software as a Service, the research showed that businesses do recognise the main advantage of SaaS as being no/low upfront costs to the service (57%) – other advantages were easier and faster upgrades (47%), easily scalable (40%), fixed cost IT for easy budgeting (36%), and access to the latest software and hardware technologies (34%).
In fact, 24% of companies questioned – equivalent to 8% of all UK SMEs – recognised the advantages of SaaS enough to seriously evaluate switching to using this approach within the next 12-18 months.
Watkinson concludes, “SMEs cannot afford to be left behind. Many have already made a move towards leveraging external IT expertise for support, maintenance, outsourcing and advice. Making the move to SaaS is the logical next step: in addition to the cost arguments, this model provides organisations with guaranteed access to the latest technologies and up to date expertise.”
For further information, please contact:
Katie Jones Krista Cundy / Kirsty Cornell
Ardent Solutions Limited The itpr Group
0844 880 6146 01932 578800
katie.jones@ardentsolutions.co.uk kristac@itpr.co.uk / kirstyc@itpr.co.uk
www.ardentsolutions.co.uk www.itpr.co.uk