Most Small Businesses Have IT Service Contracts

Fifty-nine percent – or nearly three of every five small businesses surveyed have regular monthly service contracts with their providers, while the remaining 41 percent pay by the project, or the traditional “break fix” model, indicating a strong preference for managed services.

The most popular managed service is cloud, with 70 percent of small businesses surveyed preferring to shop outside the company for that expertise. That’s followed by desk phones (69 percent), and mobile phones or tablets (63 percent).

Software implementation and management is slower to move to the newer model, with 51 percent of businesses still working with service providers on a break-fix basis, Clutch said.
Cummings supported those findings, saying that SWC has “definitely” become engaged in more managed services contracts for about nine years, with some businesses asking it to handle more work.

Most Popular Services: Cloud, Computers, Online Work

More than a third – 36 percent – of small businesses most frequently hire cloud service providers, with computers and website/online marketing right behind at 33 percent each.

Based on those results, Clutch says there is still “significant room for growth” in the cloud for small businesses.

The least popular service? Mobile app development, with only 17 percent of companies using a service provider to cover that function.

However, Clutch expects growth in that area, based on a previous study that indicates app development as a “small but increasingly popular marketing strategy” for small businesses, supported by do-it-yourself app builders.

“A lot of customers are updating (their) websites and apps” to be more mobile-friendly, Cummings told IT Best of Breed, although she added that SWC does not see a lot of custom app development.

But Cummings said SWC has heard more talk about DevOps, a strategy businesses use to deliver new software functionality more quickly by bringing together developers and IT operations professionals to work together on projects from start to finish, rather than just on parts of them.

Gartner, in fact, has predicted that DevOps will evolve this year from a niche strategy used by large cloud providers to a mainstream strategy employed by 25 percent of the world’s largest organizations.

Cummings said she “definitely” sees DevOps emerging in the IT space.