Study: BI-Cloud, Mobile-Cloud Bundles Poised for Big SMB Growth 
Cloud-based SMB solutions for business intelligence/business analytics and mobile IT will become more available to SMB firms, and such investments will become increasingly important, according to a study by AMI-Partners.
Cloud-based SMB solutions for business intelligence/business analytics and mobile IT will become more available to SMB firms, and such investments will become increasingly important, according to a study by AMI-Partners.
SaaS bundled options for BI and analytics will increase by 25% annually through 2015 to reach $500 million, AMI-Partners’ U.S. SMB Cloud Playbook study found.
“The study’s findings reflect two factors,” said Donald Best of AMI-Partners, in a statement. “SMBs are becoming more aware of the benefits of mining their data for insights that can result in savings and competitive advantage.” The availability of BI/SaaS, as part of a larger bundle, makes it a very attractive and cost-effective proposition, he added.
Many SMB business and technology decision makers are looking for data-driven business analytics and intelligence beyond spreadsheet-driven charts and BI/SaaS can provide powerful analytic tools to enable cost savings as well as competitive advantage, Best said.
There is also increased interest in BI/analytics solutions bundled with cloud infrastructure, or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and unified communications (UC) offerings, according to the study. More than one-third of SMBs deploying IaaS and UC solutions are also interested in including BI as part of the bundle. This makes BI/analytics second only to CRM, where the interest level is approximately 37%, according to the study.
Interest in application access, collaboration and cloud computing among SMBs is also increasing because of the ubiquity of broadband, mobility and smart devices, according to AMI-Partners study. Cloud will also spur rapid adoption of mobile solutions by SMBs, the firm added.
In its 2010-2011 State of SMB Cloud Services Market, AMI-Partners found nearly two thirds of SMBs equip their employees with smart phones for business purposes, and tablet computers are also experiencing very rapid uptake. Some 8% of SMBs plan to purchase over 1.5 million tablets for their businesses in the next 12 months, the study found. Collaborative working services such as hosted document sharing and UC (conferencing, messaging and presence) are provoking the highest level of future interest.
“The phenomenal expansion of mobile devices in the consumer world is having its effect on the SMB workplace,” noted Hugh Gibbs, VP Research at AMI in EMEA, and author of the report. “Users now want to take the things they can do in their private lives into their professional working practices: for example, accessing email, simple internet apps and social networking sites, or checking availability of colleagues – and to do so wherever and whenever they need to.”
“The cloud model’s flexible payment model (pay per user per month) makes access to technology affordable for resource-constrained small and medium businesses,” Gibbs added. Cloud also makes it faster and easier for SMBs to implement new technologies, including mobile, which is important as 70% of SMBs have no dedicated IT staff resources, he added.
