Understanding UK SMBs' Procurement Strategies and Outsourcing Preferences (Customer Focus)

Introduction

SMBs have previously been under-targeted by vendors, yet over the last twelve months, large vendors have noticeably increased their SMB coverage in order to gain market share in this area. A Datamonitor survey of 500 SMBs within the UK aims to discover the validity of vendors' IT solutions or services to this market.

Report Highlights
Highlights

A Datamonitor survey of 500 SMBs within the UK reveals that SMBs' outlook when choosing an IT vendor is very traditional. The majority consider the most important factors to be the standard of customer service, service performance and a strong existing working relationship. The propensity of SMBs for outsourcing is still relatively low: 25% have business applications delivered on demand by a service provider. Although this is a minority, results from the survey indicate that with the right solutions available at affordable prices SMBs may begin to adopt managed services for more aspects of their business. Security is a major issue for SMBs and they are all too aware that they will need extra resources and time to deal with any threats. This explains why 44% of SMBs would most likely look to a vendor to provide them with security services. Other issues such as connectivity, web presence and email management also come out as high priorities.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DATAMONITOR VIEW 1
CATALYST 1
SUMMARY 1
METHODOLOGY 1
ANALYSIS 2
Introduction 2
SMBs show traditional attitudes to selecting IT vendors 2
Standard of customer service is the most important factor when selecting an IT vendor 2
SMBs are more likely to trust a national telecoms provider or a national ISP for managed services 4
Many different vendors are supplying the UK SMB market 5
SMBs are generally happy with their service providers 7
A relatively low proportion of SMBs currently oursource their IT services 8
A quarter of SMBs outsource their business applications 8
The majority of SMBs manage their firewalls in house 8
Security is a key consideration in IT outsourcing decisions 9
The area that is most outsourced is security updates and patching 9
The most pressing technical requirement for SMBs is security 11
SMBs look to vendors to provide security and Internet connectivity 12
The majority of SMBs have some form of risk mitigation in place 14
The main reasons preventing SMBs from outsourcing are cost and loss of control 16
Cost and loss of control are the main reasons preventing SMBs from outsourcing the management of critical applications 16
A small proportion of SMBs can foresee a time when their IT function is fully managed externally 17
SUMMARY: Outsourcing is still a relatively low priority for SMBs in the UK 18
APPENDIX 19
Definitions 19
Extended methodology 19
Further reading 19
Ask the analyst 19
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Table 1: What is most important to you when selecting an IT vendor / partner? 3
Table 2: Which type of company would you most like to do business with and partner for your managed service requirements? 5
Table 3: From whom do you currently purchase IT solutions / components? 6
Table 4: How do you rate each provider in terms of customer service and value? 8
Table 5: How is your firewall currently managed? 9
Table 6: Which of these day to day responsibilities would you most like to get rid of? 11
Table 7: What areas do you perceive as having the most pressing technical requirements for your business today? 12
Table 8: What IT services might you look to a vendor to provide? 14
Table 9: Do you have anything in place to mitigate against the following risks? 15
Table 10: The alternative to maintaining your business critical applications on servers on your premises is to have them managed in a secure data centre. What is stopping you doing this? 17
Table 11: Could you foresee a time when your IT function is managed in its entirety by an external specialist? If you are unsure what would that depend on? 18

Figure 1: When selecting an IT vendor the most important factors are the standard of customer service and SLAs 3
Figure 2: SMBs are least likely to consider a local computer shop for managed services 4
Figure 3: BT is the most popular vendor for network services, managed server hosting and telephony 6
Figure 4: SMBs rate their providers as having a better level of customer service than value 7
Figure 5: Only a small proportion of SMBs choose to outsource the management of their firewalls 9
Figure 6: Email issues is the responsibility SMBs would most like to pass on to a third party 10
Figure 7: Security is the most pressing technical requirement 12
Figure 8: SMBs expect vendors to provide security and Internet connectivity services 13
Figure 9: Loss of data and power outages are seen as the risks most necessary to mitigate against 15
Figure 10: 40% of SMBs state cost as the strongest reason preventing them from outsourcing 16
Figure 11: The majority of SMBs do not imagine that their IT services will ever be fully outsourced 17
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