• 2025 TOP 10 SMB BUSINESS ISSUES, IT PRIORITIES, IT CHALLENGES

    2025 TOP 10 SMB BUSINESS ISSUES, IT PRIORITIES, IT CHALLENGES

  • 2025 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    2025 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    SMB & Midmarket Predictions
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  • SIMPLIFY. EXPAND. GROW.

    SIMPLIFY. EXPAND. GROW.

    SMB. CORE MIDMARKET. UPPER MIDMARKET. ECOSYSTEM
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  • ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

    SMB & Midmarket Analytics & Artificial Intelligence Adoption
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  • IT SECURITY TRENDS

    IT SECURITY TRENDS

    SMB & Midmarket Security Adoption Trends
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • CHANNEL PARTNER RESEARCH

    CHANNEL PARTNER RESEARCH

    Channel Partner Trends
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • FEATURED INFOGRAPHIC

    FEATURED INFOGRAPHIC

    2024 Top 10 SMB Business Issues, IT Priorities, IT Challenges
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  • CHANNEL INFOGRAPHIC

    CHANNEL INFOGRAPHIC

    2024 Top 10 Partner Business Challenges
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • 2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    Channel Partner Predictions
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  • CLOUD ADOPTION TRENDS

    CLOUD ADOPTION TRENDS

    SMB & Midmarket Cloud Adoption
    LATEST RESEARCH
  • FUTURE OF PARTNER ECOSYSTEM

    FUTURE OF PARTNER ECOSYSTEM

    Networked, Engaged, Extended, Hybrid
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  • BUYERS JOURNEY

    BUYERS JOURNEY

    Influence map & care-abouts
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  • DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

    DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

    Connected Business
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  • MANAGED SERVICES RESEARCH

    MANAGED SERVICES RESEARCH

    SMB & Midmarket Managed Services Adoption
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  • WHITE PAPER

    WHITE PAPER

    SMB Path to Digitalization
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Techaisle Blog

Insightful research, flexible data, and deep analysis by a global SMB IT Market Research and Industry Analyst organization dedicated to tracking the Future of SMBs and Channels.
Anurag Agrawal

SMB and Midmarket - ITDMs and BDMs: the balance of purchase authority

Techaisle's SMB & midmarket research not only confirms that BDMs are increasingly present in the IT solution adoption process but the research deep-dived to understand the extent to which BDMs actually lead their organizations in adopting solutions. To develop a deeper perspective on this issue, Techaisle asked both ITDM and BDM respondents to address questions that explored the acquisition process around software (both new applications and meaningful upgrades to existing applications), infrastructure hardware and IT services. The results provide direction for sales strategies aimed at these product segments within the US SMB market.

Software budget authority

“Determining the need for” a new business application or a meaningful enhancement to an existing application is not, of course, identical to signing off on the purchase of a new system. When we extended our coverage to ask about having “budgetary control and authority,” we discovered two interesting findings:

  • The proportion of organizations where budgetary control and purchasing authority for new applications rests entirely with BDMs increases in all e-size segments, relative to the statistics for determining need in these segments. This means that BDM control over the final purchase decision is even higher than the “determining the need for” statistics suggest.
  • The proportion of respondents reporting that responsibility resides entirely with either IT or business – but is not shared between them – increases in five out of seven e-size segments (missing only the 10-19 and 20-49 employees groups). This suggests that needs identification may be more collaborative than final purchase decisions.
  • Both findings point to the same conclusion: that BDMs are extremely important to suppliers of software.
Anurag Agrawal

SMB and Midmarket digital transformation needs orchestration

“IT and cloud orchestration” reflects the reality of a multi-platform world in the era of digital transformation. Techaisle research shows that within the SMB & midmarket segment, orchestrated connected cloud and technology will be the focus of substantial new investment over the next few years. Connected cloud itself forms the basis for an Interwork platform for successful digital transformation and is crucial for competitiveness and growth.

  • Upper midmarket firms use an average of 2.5 of the four leading public cloud providers (AWS, Microsoft, Google, IBM) – a true multi-cloud environment
  • For 25% of small businesses and 51% of midmarket firms, workloads and data migrate across cloud and/or on-premise platforms
  • 89% of midmarket firms state that orchestration tools are critical to their ability to deploy workloads on hybrid platforms
  • 46% of SMBs do not know which cloud services to use and in what order
  • 47% of SMB/midmarket-focused channel partners are offering orchestration but only 24% are delivering, but 55% are expecting substantial revenue increases in the next 1 year
  • Use of orchestration is poised for growth as 40% of midmarket firms and 15% of small businesses are implementing cloud connectivity

Using a large number of on-premise technology as well as cloud platforms is escalating complexity beyond reasonable manual management limits. In response to this conundrum, many SMBs & midmarket firms are turning to orchestration as a strategy for optimizing use of multiple platforms and multiple technologies (topic of another blog another time). But help and guidance are missing. Even Techaisle’s latest channel partner study shows that although 47% offer orchestration but only 24% are delivering, and that also partially. Their vendor partners are not helping because of intense focus on enterprise segment.

In the quest for digitalization and digital transformation there has been ad hoc adoption of technology – both cloud & on-premise - as responses to paint points within SMBs.

Anurag Agrawal

Digital transformation challenging the SMB buyers journey

The first step in influencing the potential of a technology to impact business outcome is identifying the extent to which technology aligns with or supports executive ‘care-abouts’ of the SMB buyers. Technologies that connect directly to C-level objectives are most likely to obtain support. Techaisle survey data shows that digital transformation is very prominent in executive-oriented IT discussions but influencing the SMB & midmarket IT and non-IT buyer is no cakewalk. Consider these statistics from Techaisle surveys:

  • 72% of SMB IT purchases are triggered by an acute business pain point & number of pain points are increasing
  • 52% of SMBs are facing 5+ business challenges
  • SMB IT Purchase Decision Making Unit (DMU) has grown by 250% over the last decade
  • Average of 5.2 decision makers are involved in technology purchase decisions in midmarket firms & 2.1 in small businesses
  • 43% of IT buyers are millennials
  • SMBs have 7 distinct business processes
  • Channel partner is involved at only 50% decision making stage
  • 70% of the buyer’s journey is complete before first meaningful contact with a potential supplier
  • 17% of SMBs use six or more information sources
  • Average channel partner sales cycle is 7.7 weeks

Where, when and who to influence is a key challenge, especially when digital transformation impacts more than one buyer segment and business process.

Anurag Agrawal

Techaisle SMB study: integrated, interconnected business applications deliver better business outcomes

Techaisle survey shows:

  • 73% of US SMBs are using at least one SaaS application, up from 27% in 2011
  • 51% of global SMBs begin their cloud journey with SaaS
  • Global SMB spend on SaaS in 2018 will be US$40 billion
  • Cloud is the agility platform & SaaS is a zero-friction option for automating business processes
  • 74% of SMBs achieved increased business agility with connected business processes

techaisle smb midmarket benefits

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