• SIMPLIFY. EXPAND. GROW.

    SIMPLIFY. EXPAND. GROW.

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

    ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

    SMB & Midmarket Analytics & Artificial Intelligence Adoption
    LEARN MORE
  • 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
    LEARN MORE
  • CHANNEL INFOGRAPHIC

    CHANNEL INFOGRAPHIC

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

    2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    SMB & Midmarket Predictions
    READ
  • 2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    2024 TOP 10 PREDICTIONS

    Channel Partner Predictions
    READ
  • CLOUD ADOPTION TRENDS

    CLOUD ADOPTION TRENDS

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

    FUTURE OF PARTNER ECOSYSTEM

    Networked, Engaged, Extended, Hybrid
    DOWNLOAD NOW
  • BUYERS JOURNEY

    BUYERS JOURNEY

    Influence map & care-abouts
    LEARN MORE
  • DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

    DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

    Connected Business
    LEARN MORE
  • MANAGED SERVICES RESEARCH

    MANAGED SERVICES RESEARCH

    SMB & Midmarket Managed Services Adoption
    LEARN MORE
  • WHITE PAPER

    WHITE PAPER

    SMB Path to Digitalization
    DOWNLOAD

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

Techaisle Survey: Governance Challenges Hinder AI and Cloud Adoption in SMBs

Techaisle's SMB and Midmarket security adoption trend survey research underscores the critical role of governance in today's complex IT landscape. The findings reveal that 36% of organizations identify a lack of governance as a significant impediment to successful AI project implementation. Additionally, 42% cite governance as a barrier to adopting cloud communications solutions. These challenges highlight the need for robust governance frameworks. Encouragingly, the survey also indicates a strong emphasis on security, with 58% prioritizing governance, risk, and compliance as essential components of their overall security strategy.

In the SMB context, "governance" is a concept akin to "taste" in interior design or "sustainability" in supply chains: universally acknowledged as essential but notoriously challenging to define. What is clear is governance's crucial role in safeguarding SMB interests, encompassing risk mitigation, regulatory adherence, and brand protection. It represents the collective vision of an organization, shaping its interactions with customers, partners, and the public. The term "governance" is often appropriated by IT departments, leading to discussions around IT, cloud, or data governance, obscuring its broader organizational implications.

techaisle governance twitter post

Anurag Agrawal

When Security Falters: A Single Update Exposed SMB Fragility and the Need for Resiliency

A recent update from CrowdStrike caused a widespread outage, termed the largest in history. The IT outage highlighted the vulnerability of SMBs to large-scale tech outages and their dependence on third-party IT services. It also underscored the need for better preparedness and potentially more diverse IT ecosystems to mitigate such risks in the future. Cybercrime is predicted to cost $14.57 trillion globally in 2024, and it would be the world's third-largest economy after the US and China. This underlines the importance of robust cybersecurity. The incident raises a concerning question: what happens when the guardians become the source of disruption? The CrowdStrike-related outage was not caused by a cyberattack, but rather by a defect in a software update, highlighting the importance of operational resilience beyond just cybersecurity measures. Analysts estimate the global cost of this outage to be as high as $24 billion as of now.

Uneven Recovery for SMBs

A Techaisle survey of 600 small businesses indicates that 34% expect customer reputation damage and 23% anticipate significant bottom-line impacts due to operational challenges. Logistics complications from inventory management to shipment tracking caused business friction. Communication issues with clients, suppliers, and staff led to delays and missed opportunities, while financial activities like processing payments and managing invoices suffered. Some businesses also faced customer service obstacles, leading to customer dissatisfaction and reputational harm.

The recent CrowdStrike outage has highlighted the essential need for dependable tech in today’s businesses and the severe impact that short downtimes can have, especially on SMBs. It's a stark reminder of the importance of solid IT frameworks and contingency planning. Small businesses suffer disproportionally during such outages due to leaner cyber defenses and limited personnel, which are significant hurdles when crises strike. The manual resolution required here spotlighted these weaknesses. Small IT teams, typically stretched thin with various duties, found it tough to manage the fix across several devices, leading to overtime work to fix crucial operations.

techaisle it outage

Anurag Agrawal

Techaisle research shows shifts in SMB and Midmarket Security Investment Trends

Techaisle's study on SMB and Midmarket Security Adoption Trends projects that IT security spending by small and mid-sized businesses worldwide is expected to reach US$90 billion in 2024, showing a 9.4% increase from the previous year. In the US alone, the market expenditure is set to rise by 8.3%. Significant investments will concentrate on Endpoint Protection, Network Security, and Identity and Access Management, with MDR (Manage, Detect, Respond) services seeing the most rapid growth in the SMB and midmarket sectors.

A significant increase in funding for IT security is projected among high-growth SMBs. Notably, 21% of rapidly growing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs) and 26% of mid-sized companies are forecasting a minimum growth of 15% in their IT security budgets for 2024. Highly innovative organizations are committed to improving security measures as well, with 18% of SMBs and 21% of midmarket companies planning to boost their spending by 12% compared to the previous year.

Techaisle's data also reveals a concerning cybersecurity preparedness gap among small and medium-sized businesses, with 42% having no cyber incident response plan. Despite nearly half experiencing security breaches, often going unnoticed, only 40% are confident in their recovery capabilities, likely downplaying the risks. These cyberattacks come at a high cost, with SMBs' average annual losses reaching $1.4 million. Contributing to this issue is the fact that 46% of these businesses lack formal risk assessment methods, indicating a serious underestimation of online threats.

Addressing SMB and Midmarket security issues can be done through various lenses. Segmenting security adoption into four categories—Prevent & Protect, Detect & Respond, Adapt & Comply, Restore & Recover—provides an understanding of preferred solutions and areas poised for growth. This framework helps clarify how these companies prioritize and distribute funds for cybersecurity strategies.

techaisle smb midmarket security momentum 2024

Anurag Agrawal

Securing the Future: Cisco's Innovative Leap in Security and Observability

Today's cybersecurity landscape is a complex maze, with a multitude of vendors contributing to a convoluted and intricate security stack. The evolution of security from traditional perimeter defenses around private data centers to a distributed network of branch offices, remote workers, and IoT devices has necessitated a radical shift in security strategies, with a focus on enforcement points across the network. At its core, security is a data challenge, where the sheer volume of data often hinders the identification of actionable insights, leading to an imbalanced signal-to-noise ratio and the prevalent issue of alert fatigue. Effective data connection across control points is crucial to transform low-level alerts into critical insights that demand immediate action.

Under the visionary leadership of Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration, Cisco's security product portfolio has undergone a transformative evolution. This radical re-envisioning of security paradigms has significantly refined Cisco's security cloud solutions, streamlining the adoption process for an integrated security platform. In response to the complexities of distributed environments, Cisco introduced 'Hypershield,' a pioneering expansion of the hyper-distributed architecture concept tailored to meet the demands of hyper-distributed security. The strategic acquisition of Splunk has further fortified Cisco's capabilities, enabling it to manage the signal-to-noise ratio effectively. Leveraging Splunk's advanced data analytics, Cisco aims to mitigate alert fatigue by converting many low-level events into meaningful, actionable insights.

cisco security cisco live 2024

The Birth of the Cisco Security Cloud Platform

In June 2022, Cisco introduced the Cisco Security Cloud Platform at the RSA Conference, a visionary solution designed to streamline the complexity of managing disparate security tools. This platform offers a unified experience, ensuring secure connections for users and devices to applications and data, irrespective of location.

The platform's emphasis on openness provides a comprehensive suite for threat prevention, detection, response, and remediation at scale. At its core is a powerful firewall, enhanced with AI for superior analysis. Identity management is flawlessly integrated, allowing every Cisco security product to leverage AI-driven insights and user authentication.

Cisco addressed the challenge customers faced with the vast array of security products—approximately 30 products with over 1,000 variations—by significantly simplifying its portfolio. Customers now have a choice of three intuitive suites: User Protection, Cloud Protection, and Breach Protection. These suites are not merely bundled; they are fully integrated, facilitating seamless communication and improved functionality, making security management far more straightforward and efficient.

Tackling Hyper-Distributed Security with Cisco Hypershield

As an industry analyst, I am convinced that Cisco's recent strides in security innovation are nothing short of impressive. The 2023 launch of Cisco Multi-cloud Defense, Cisco XDR, Cisco Secure Access, and advanced firewall functionalities marked a year of significant progress. The introduction of Cisco AI Assistant was a testament to its commitment to continuous innovation. In 2024, Cisco took a giant leap by introducing Hypershield, a sophisticated, AI-enhanced, cloud-native security system set to redefine cybersecurity.

Research You Can Rely On | Analysis You Can Act Upon

Techaisle - TA