Annual IT Operations Survey Reveals Opportunities for MSPs
After a year where IT in SMBs around the globe took center stage in the rush to support remote work during a pandemic, we wanted to see how things stood and what challenges and opportunities IT organizations have on their mind going forward. The annual Kaseya IT operations survey queried more than 900 leaders responsible for IT functions at companies with fewer than 3,000 employees to find out.
Overall, we found most businesses were investing more in IT and broadening the scope of services for which they’re in the market. While many rapidly ramped up some aspects of their IT infrastructure to survive and thrive in 2020, they’re far from done with these transformations.
Here are some of the main findings of interest to MSPs:
It’s Still Partly Cloudy
The great cloud migration continues in 2021, as 36% of SMBs rank this as a top priority for the year. The most popular configuration is a hybrid public-private cloud strategy, which is used by 65% of SMBs.
This is driving spending increases in this domain, as 54% of companies are increasing their IaaS spend and 36% are devoting more money to SaaS expenses. The most common SaaS solutions used by SMBs are Microsoft365 (77%), Google Workspace (28%) and Salesforce.com (26%).
At the same time, those legacy systems that haven’t yet made the move to the cloud or other modern platforms continue holding some SMBs back: 24% said they’re hampering growth and innovation by slowing things down and limiting what’s possible.
However, this problem may not persist for some of those SMBs, as 52% of companies are allocating a portion of their budget to modernize and update their legacy systems, which is the top driver for getting additional IT dollars this year.
Automation Envy
While some routine tasks may be automated already, most SMBs are still doing a lot of things manually. But trying to do less with more is a consistent theme, as 49% of SMBs are allocating a portion of their IT budget to the cause, with 34% aiming to boost productivity by automating routine IT processes.
Tools are a major part of increasing efficiency, and the majority of SMBs are relying on them for some functions, with help desk/ticking (75%), endpoint management (63%), IT documentation/knowledge management (55%), and network management and performance monitoring (54%) all used by more than half of SMBs.
Budgeting Inconsistency
Despite the ever-increasing importance of IT for SMBs’ ability to operate and grow, IT budgets remain a challenge. Nearly one-third (30%) of SMBs struggle to meet the demands of the organization with the money allocated for these activities.
Luckily, this isn’t consistent across the market, as 38% of SMBs are increasing their budgets this year compared to just 13% seeing their budget reduced. Digital transformation and more complex hybrid IT environments account for much of those increased dollars. Forty-nine percent of SMBs also said their IT budget is growing as a direct result of growth for the overall business.
Remote Work is Still a Work in Progress
And, even though in many cases SMBs have been supporting remote workers for more than a year–not to mention all the businesses that had pre-pandemic remote work arrangements– SMBs aren’t done investing in IT to support this initiative. In fact, 42% say remote work is a major driver for their 2021 IT budgets.
The top endpoint management use cases haven’t shifted much this year: 55% of SMBs note remote access and management of endpoints is key, likely driven in part by the increase in remote work. This is closely followed by software patch management (54%), which is also increasingly critical with a distributed workforce. IT process automation is another key use case for half the respondents. Click on Page 2 to continue reading…
- Page 1
- Page 2