Cashing in on the growing SMB market may require a little TLC

THERE ARE TWO THINGS WE ALL know about the SMB market in Australia: it is absolutely massive and it is a potential gold mine. Making up around 97 percent of all private sector businesses, these companies not only represent a huge up-front sales opportunity but more importantly an ongoing one.

But what exactly is it that all these small to midsize players want? Well, according to Google’s president for enterprise, Dave Girouard, who spoke earlier this year at CeBIT Australia, the one thing that both enterprise and SMBs crave in common is innovation. That’s right, despite the want for the latest and greatest technology, unless businesses have the resources and technical know-how to innovate and grow their business, everything else is worth diddly squat. So if, as Girouard posits, that around 80 percent of enterprise expense is taken up by maintaining IT instead of innovating with it, imagine how this affects the smaller guys.

It’s a common case that smaller players are plagued by a lack of technical and skilled personnel resources. Not only does this hinder business operations by increasing complexity, but it can also translate to limited understanding of technology’s benefits. Add on top of this the fact that most SMBs lack the financial resources to confidently select, effectively roll out and properly administer the full gamut of their IT systems, and you have a huge percentage of Australian business at the mercy of technology and at risk of disruptions that can harm their business. But as with all clouds there’s a silver lining and this time it comes in the form of a huge opportunity in which integrators, access providers and resellers can jump in and help out.

Enter managed services
The small business player generally wants the latest and greatest equipment at a competitive price, not only to smooth business processes, but to allow them to compete at a level playing ground with the bigger companies. But more importantly, they want it in the form of the one-stop do-it-all IT shop. And why shouldn’t they? In the world of Web 2.0, innovation rules and it should not be dictated by prohibitive costs of technology for the elite few. Luckily for SMBs, the past couple of years have seen technology in the enterprise market hit saturation levels, which in turn has led vendors to open up enterprise IT solutions in the form of managed services for the SMB market.

At its core, managed services is about delivering, managing and supporting specific IT services, applications and equipment on an ongoing basis so businesses can free up resources for more important and business critical ventures. From email and systems security, to networking, storage and remote management, almost all IT functions can be sourced to managed services for improved efficiency and major cost savings for the customer.

But it’s not always about saving an extra dollar, according to Drew Savage, global alliance manager for managed security services at Fortinet. Rather, it’s about maintaining complexity so resources can be invested in more critical areas.

“It’s not all about saving a resource allocation by lowering your level of cost, it’s about redirecting those resources to other projects that are beneficial to the end organisation,” he said, and he’s right.

SMBs shouldn’t be bogged down in maintaining and managing technology, they should be investing in innovation to grow their business and by relation, their managed service provider’s (MSP) business.

However, for the value added resellers and integrators that seek to provide managed services to the burgeoning Australian and highly under-served market of SMBs, managed services must include more than equipment, support, cost savings and services management – they must also include trust.

Although network, email security, remote management are all fundamental parts of the managed service package, SMBs still need more. They seek a partner who not only can operate as their entire IT department but can offer the ongoing support and the face-to-face interaction they crave.

Unlike Software as a Service (SaaS) providers (who traditionally service enterprise customers making it easier to utilise certain business applications), MSPs are required to ask potential customers to trust them with their whole IT operations. It’s a massive leap to go from sourcing one aspect of an IT application (as with SaaS) to actually going the whole nine yards and relinquishing complete control of an entire IT function. Especially if you consider that losing access to an application is often only an isolated affair, whereas losing the use of an IT function can disrupt an entire organisation.

But really the lesson here is simple: build trust and know what you’re good at. Packaging your managed services as a remote solution with limited on-site support just doesn’t cut it because SMBs aren’t comfortable buying remote managed services that force them to sacrifice their face-to-face interaction with their suppliers – they want a trusted relationship in which they know they will be taken care of.

Trust is not to be confused with brand recognition. Take for example, Telstra, a big player in the Australian market that is instantly recognised and is often the first port of call for small businesses that lack intimate partner support. Although they have an established brand and trust in the market, the sheer size of such a provider often means that it’s hard to intimately look after each and every customer. Alternatively, a dedicated MSP who can establish an ongoing relationship with a customer, provide the trust and on-site support they want and need, will have customers sign up without blinking.