In 2009, it’s no longer business as usual. The sharp economic decline has led many small companies to slash operating costs and cut staff to the bone. In the wake of small businesses’ initial shock and awe, uncertainty has become the new normal.
With little fat left to trim, small businesses that want to stay in business will turn to technology solutions to help optimize talent and streamline business processes to get back on a growth trajectory.
Some of the technology trends that will take shape as a result are that small businesses will:
1. Catch the social networking wave. Reduced marketing budgets and headcount will tempt more small businesses to social networking to spread the word about their businesses—and tap into customer and market opinion and demand. Look for small businesses to start figuring out how to take advantage of blogs, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc. for no and low cost viral marketing. These businesses will also tap into the mobility angle, as vendors extend more social networking capabilities to more mobile devices.
2. Demand solutions that do more for less. With economic anxiety growing and budgets shrinking, “Easier, cheaper, better, faster” is the bar that vendors must meet. Transparent pricing and service agreements are a must; and vendors must prove early on in the sales cycle that their solutions increase revenues, improve profitability and/or reduce risk. Those with blurry value propositions will not survive.
3. Find fresh technology alternatives more appealing. Barack Obama’s election signaled one thing loud and clear—people are ready for change. Small businesses are too. Their minds will be much more open to a new generation of solutions to help differentiate in the market, reach more customers, and pursue new business models and opportunities.
4. Favor software-as-service (SaaS) over packaged software that they have to buy, install and manage. The SaaS model is now about 10 years old. To date, adoption has been steady but gradual. Dramatic reductions in capital budgets and headcount mean that companies will be much more likely to consider SaaS alternatives seriously than ever before. The fact that all the big guys—Microsoft, IBM and Google—now have on demand offerings will also accelerate adoption.
5. Increasingly turn to non-Microsoft desktops and servers. Despite the price premium, those small businesses that are tired of dealing with Windows problems, will turn to Apple in greater numbers. At the same time, netbooks will pick up share in small businesses when workers are using the Internet most of the time and don’t need a lot of desktop horsepower. Likewise, value-priced plug and play server and software appliances (usually built on open source software), which bundle up a complete solution and require no IT management, will start eroding Windows server sales. Look for security, storage and collaboration appliances, along with pre-packaged solutions that zero in on specific vertical industry needs.
6. Innovate beyond what we can anticipate. Continuing economic uncertainty is a recipe for the unexpected. Hundreds of thousands of people are being laid off every month. After a few months of sending their resumes into the black hole of Internet job sites, many will decide to strike out on their own and do something new. Business innovation among both startups and established small businesses will be on the rise, and so will the opportunities for technology vendors that can create solutions to enable this innovation.
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