UK businesses divided as SMBs play catch-up

New research conducted by Altodigital has revealed a startling divide between the attitudes and strategy of SMBs in comparison to larger organisations when it comes to tackling a range of crucial IT issues such as security, print services and digital transformation.
The findings revealed that 51% of small and medium sized businesses simply aren’t interested in using managed print services. In addition to this, an emphatic 78% also admitted that they had no policy in place, despite the proven benefits for smaller organisations. This was a distinct revelation considering 82% of large organisations revealed that a print policy was already in place.
The research commissioned by the office technology solutions provider consisted of two individual studies, one that polled 100 IT decision makers from corporate UK companies with 500+ employees and a further survey that delved into UK SMBs with less than 500 employees.
The results uncovered a stark contrast between the attitude of large and small businesses in the UK when it came to digital transformation. In this area, 36% of large corporate businesses revealed that they had completed digital transformation, with a further 46% saying it was well underway in their organisation. In terms of SMBs the gap was extensive, exactly a third (33%) admitted that they had not started the transition yet and had no plans to do so.
Alistair Millar, Group Marketing Manager at Altodigital said: “It is really surprising to see such a gap between large organisations in many areas, you would typically believe that small businesses are more forward thinking and agile than larger enterprises. However, these results indicate that in some areas, such as managed print services and digital transition, they could be missing a trick.”
The results also discovered an apparent lack of awareness in terms of IT issues, just 3% of large firms believed their organisation had ‘no IT challenges’ in comparison to 34% of SMBs. This is somewhat surprising considering the fluid and challenging nature of the IT environment, highlighted by the recent spate of cyberattack hacks on both large and small companies.
The corporate survey also provided an interesting insight into a larger firm’s top IT issues, with 40% listing that maintaining their existing infrastructure was the top concern.
“While it is encouraging to see that SMBs appear to have very few IT issues, it is important that businesses stay alert to any potential threats while also optimising and improving their IT infrastructure”, added Millar.