Techaisle Blog

In 2021, we predicted that AI would permeate small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and midmarket firms, not as an independent solution but as an integral feature within other products. As SMBs fully comprehend the inherent nature of AI, they will increasingly seek AI-powered solutions to prescribe actions that mitigate risks and enhance decision-making, business agility, and innovation proactively.

We also predicted that AI technology would evolve so rapidly that by the time SMBs become comfortable with data-driven decision-making, AI would be executing decisions that might be beyond the comprehension of business executives. The challenge with AI would shift from trusting data over intuition to trusting AI when insights into its decision-making process are not readily available in the cloud applications used by SMBs and midmarket firms. We expect this trend to continue into 2024.

After surveying over 3000 SMBs and midmarket firms, Techaisle has announced its top 10 SMB and midmarket predictions for 2024. There is intense market pressure on SMB and midmarket executives to deliver tangible progress towards – and benefits from – application innovation and digital business. At least some of this results from a worldwide fascination with Generative AI and its anticipated potential to transform nearly any function it might apply to. Gen-AI offers significant potential for SMBs and midmarket firms to enhance their operations and drive innovation. By leveraging this technology effectively, these businesses can improve efficiency, productivity, and customer satisfaction.

In 2024, SMBs and Midmarket business and technology leaders will maintain a practical perspective as they move into the digital future powered by AI. SMBs will invest in AI-infused, AI-embedded, tailor-made technology solutions to streamline operations and expand their customer base. To improve manageability, reduce complexity, and limit sprawl, pragmatism will overtake progressiveness. Technology choice and deployment complexity will create purchase inertia, empowering SMBs to seek suppliers capable of supporting a roadmap from the current state to a future-ready organization. SMBs will look for proof points in AI solutions that deliver tangible benefits within their environment. SMBs will adjust their own pricing strategies and implement cost-control measures. Labor shortages will prompt them to invest in employee training and retention initiatives to ensure smooth operations and efficiency. Additionally, SMBs will opt for proactive supply chain management and diversification strategies to minimize disruptions and exploit growth opportunities.

Here are Techaisle’s top 10 SMB and Midmarket predictions for 2024.

My journey with Cisco and its Webex product began when I established Techaisle. At that time, Zoom was not even on the horizon. Initially, GoToMeeting was my go-to platform for presentation collaboration, but we eventually transitioned to Webex. However, we switched as the Techaisle team grew and MS Teams was introduced. In the past two years, I have expanded my toolkit to include Webex, the Webex Desk Pro, Webex Desk Mini, Webex camera, and most recently, the Bang & Olufsen Cisco 950 wireless earbuds. Besides Webex, I have used these devices with various platforms, including Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. The interoperability has been impressive, and the performance of the Webex devices has been outstanding.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

The recent WebexOne event marked a significant shift and showcased a transformed platform. Webex has shed its old skin and emerged as a rejuvenated entity steered by a team of exceptional executives. 

The digital revolution has reshaped the business landscape, with hybrid work becoming a cornerstone of modern corporate culture. Yet, the transition to hybrid work models is not without its challenges. Many organizations struggle to foster a consistent work culture and build high-performing teams in this new environment. Technological disparities, such as inconsistent internet connectivity, further complicate matters, impacting workforce productivity and inclusivity. This digital divide can lead to a sense of exclusion among employees facing connectivity issues, undermining the inclusivity of hybrid workplaces.

Webex is dedicated to helping organizations overcome these obstacles. By integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its platform, Webex has enhanced its efficiency, user-friendliness, and audio, video, and language processing capabilities. The platform now boasts advanced noise cancellation, speech-to-text conversion, automatic camera framing, facial recognition, and real-time automatic language translation, making meetings more accessible and productive. These AI-driven enhancements were unveiled at the WebexOne 2023 event.

According to data from Techaisle, it is projected that the global IT expenditure of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will escalate to a staggering US$1.35 trillion by 2024. Furthermore, this spending is anticipated to experience a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.7%, extending through 2028. Cisco is making a significant push into the SMB market, a segment where it has enjoyed steady growth. In fiscal year 2023, which concluded in July, the SMB segment was Cisco’s top-performing customer category for a third consecutive year. Cisco sees this segment as a $25 billion addressable market opportunity, captured with mid to high-tier SMBs transitioning to cloud and SaaS solutions. Notably, about 20% of Cisco’s SMB business comes from new customers every year, underscoring this segment's critical role in expanding Cisco’s reach and reflecting on the growing demand for technology amongst SMBs.

Cisco’s go-to-market in the SMB segment is partner-led, catalyzed with continuous partner-focused programs, initiatives, and marketing investments to foster robust relationships. According to the latest research by Techaisle, a significant majority of SMBs, 87%, depend on their partners for technology solutions. Furthermore, these SMBs channel nearly 89% of their IT expenditure through these partners. Cisco is, therefore, continuously enhancing its engagement with partners, revamping its marketing strategies, and adapting to the changing needs of its customers. A vital part of this strategy is the focus on the new “Scale” go-to-market initiative, aligned to engaging SMB customers and Partners in this space, as unveiled at the company’s sales kickoff meeting in August. This model offers partners and customers enhanced sales and marketing support, ensuring that SMBs receive expert advice in crucial care-about areas such as cybersecurity or hybrid work.

The concept of “digital transformation” has become a staple in corporate discussions over the years. While some may write it off as a fad, many, particularly SMBs, understand its importance. For these businesses, digital transformation involves adopting digital technologies to streamline operations, improve customer relationships, and position themselves as agile and innovative entities in their respective fields. Techaisle data reveals that 71% of SMBs are investing in digital transformation, and 37% have a holistic digital strategy. SMBs, once perceived as technologically behind, are actively embracing cloud solutions to meet their IT requirements. These technologies have become crucial to their digital transformation journey, enabling them to automate various operational aspects and gain a competitive advantage through essential business process automation tools, orchestration, and integration or advanced offerings like custom AI and analytics applications hosted on cloud platforms.

In a genuine sense, the discussion of “the cloud” is similar in scope to the discussion of “IT.” In both cases, use is a given, but the scope and impact of that use are critical to the operational effectiveness and competitiveness.

In today’s world, there is little distinction between “business infrastructure” and “digital business infrastructure;” in recent SMB survey research, Techaisle found that executives from nearly all upper midmarket firms (1000-4999 employees) agree that we have reached a “post-digital” state where all business strategy discussions include digital considerations.

Cloud is the linchpin for these strategies. A Techaisle survey of more than 2,000 firms, segmented into small business (1-99 employees), core midmarket (100-999), and upper midmarket (1000-4999), found that across this broad spectrum, SMBs universally see cloud as a way to reduce IT and operational costs, increase operational agility, and support improved business processes that drive increased efficiency and profitability.

Cloud in an SMB Business Context

For more than a decade, the cloud has been touted as a means of enabling SMBs to capture IT benefits that were previously the sole province of large enterprises: the ability to achieve both IT cost-efficiency and the competitive edge arising from ubiquitous automation that accelerates processes and unlocks the potential of new relationships, offerings, and markets. Today, SMBs and midmarket firms are seeking a zero-friction future: a state in which businesses can seamlessly deploy and integrate capabilities across multiple business areas, creating fluid systems linking core functions to new approaches to engagement, insight, and innovation.

Since 2014, the path forward has proved to be more fractious than the vision. In most SMBs, the cloud itself advanced in fits and starts, with early attempts at hosted private cloud and use of public cloud to support business-critical workloads snagging on unclear platform standards, a lack of experienced talent, economic worries, and a delivery horizon which remained stubbornly beyond practical experience. But in time, knowledge and improved technologies have addressed the rough edges.

Cloud is increasingly able to deliver real benefits to SMBs: it is both a priority and a current reality, providing business infrastructure that connects strategy and execution, responding to changing business requirements, changing customer and supplier expectations, volatile competitive pressures, and new opportunities for automation of both systems and system-dependent processes and workflows.

Six truths about cloud in the SMB