The state of technology for business growth

At the beginning of the year, only the lazy would not get down to making a complex analysis of the previous year results. Consider us lazy then, since we don’t want to waste your time with bulky wording.  

Instead, we rake up the prominent numbers from Deloitte, Statista, WeAreSocial, CompTIA, Clutch and other sources to give you a brief insight on what challenges small and medium businesses came up with at the end of 2016, and how IT industry can help with the technology for business growth.

Half of World Population Browses the Internet and Uses Mobile

1. Imagine, 3.42 bln people around the globe are Internet users. This is 46%, or almost a half of world population.
2. Consider today there are 3.79 bln unique mobile users. In other words, more than a half of all people on the planet, particularly 51%, own mobile phones.
3. More than 30%, or 2.31 bln people have at least one social media account, with 1.97 bln using mobile to manage their social media.
4. In comparison with the stats from 2015, the use of the Internet, mobile and social media grew by 10% on average.

(Based on the report made by WeAreSocial)

Businesses Feel Pressure when Engaging These People and Turning Them into Customers

1. More than 60% of small businesses, for example, have concerns on how to increase the amount of customers.
2. Meanwhile, around 40% of SMBs consider it hard to retain existing clients.
3. In order to implement these goals, businesses employ marketing. In particular, SMBs focus 51% of marketing efforts on website and 48% on social media development and improvement.
4. In this regard, businesses realize the need to improve their online assets. This is why around 40% of SMBs focus their efforts on improving customer experience and connect these efforts directly to revenue increase.

(Based on the statistics collected by Blue Corona taken from Statista, CMOSurvey, PRNewsWire, Business2Community, etc.)

Even Focusing Half of Their Marketing on Website, Companies Need to Extend Their Technology to Grow Business

1. According to Clutch.co, around 50% of small businesses still don’t have websites and lack online presence whatsoever.
2. The third (30%) of SMBs that don’t have a website claim high cost as the major reason.
3. Another 11% don’t work on the issue because of fears to maintaining their own online asset, while 10% admit they lack tech knowledge and business software development expertise to build a website.
4. And this was true for 2016, despite the fact that between 70-80% of potential customers search for small businesses online before reaching out or ordering from them.

30% say that keeping up with technology advances is a major concern of small business owners

 

Meanwhile, Businesses can Easily Fill This Gap with Affordable Technology from Growing IT Industry 

1. In numbers, global information technology market has reached the point of $3.8 trln in 2016.
2. The U.S. IT market alone accounts for nearly $1 trln or 28% of the whole IT market industry.
3. IT industry confidence index, the measure of overall confidence in financial standing and perspectives of the industry, has grown to historically high level in 2016 reaching the remarkable 64 points on a 100-point scale.
4. Despite the volume of the industry, around 99.7% of IT companies are presented by micro, small and medium establishments, with the majority (82%) of companies not exceeding the size of 10 people.

(Based on the report made by CompTIA.org)

Thus, IT Industry Increases the Supply of Technology for Business Growth, from Full Scale Technical Partnership to Temporary Outsourcing

1. According to the report made by Deloitte in May 2016, around 72% of companies that rely on outsourcing currently outsource software development services.
2. 78% of the companies that entrust their IT needs to technical partners and outsource feel confident with this strategy.
3. 59% of respondents claim that technical partnership and outsourcing help them cut costs, while 57% use this strategy to avoid destruction from core business operations.
4. Since the companies feel more confident on the quality, responsiveness and innovation of services from tech partners, the volume of IT outsource growth reached 31% in 2016 compared to 26% in 2014.

(Based on the report made by Deloitte)

Conclusion

Relying on the given numbers that touch upon customers, businesses and tech providers, it’s easy to conclude:

1. Customers heavily rely on online and mobile.
2. Businesses, especially small ones, experience the lack of online presence and have doubts about investing into web assets.
3. IT industry provides better and more cost-efficient technology for business growth.
4. Both long-term tech partnership and IT outsourcing will meet greater demand in 2017.