Small Businesses left in lurch after IT purchasing

British small businesses are receiving inadequate customer support and intelligence prior to making crucial technology buying decisions, a new report commissioned by Cisco Systems reveals today. According to the survey of 400 UK small businesses, the majority of small businesses (42%) feel left in the lurch after purchasing technology, due to insufficient post-sales support or training.

The second largest complaint blighting small business IT buying, highlighted by 41% of the respondents, was the feeling of having enterprise scale technology imposed on them, as opposed to products tailored to their size.

Bernadette Wightman, Cisco Systems UK commented: “Considering that 99% of businesses in the UK have less than 250 staff, it is woefully inadequate for technology providers to be just providing products designed for businesses with 1,000 plus workforces. Small businesses require smart, simplified networking and security products to provide a solid foundation of technology, which can then empower their businesses to compete, shield their network and promote workplace efficiency. If they don’t have the right core technologies in place then small businesses can’t hope to benefit from the new breed of enabling and empowering technologies.”

The research highlighted a definite split in terms of “savvy” IT procurement decision-making, and uninformed technology choices. A large proportion of tech decision-makers conduct sound research in magazines and journals (57%), seek advice from peers in other companies (38%) and external business consultants (38%) prior to buying IT. Worryingly however, 13% of respondents make their decisions based on “gut feeling”. This trend was especially

The research was conducted by independent research house, Vanson Bourne, among non–technology-centric businesses sized between 10 – 250 employees prevalent among very young start-ups (averaging five staff), where over one in five (21%) selected technology on gut feeling as opposed to specific research.

Despite facing significant barriers to their purchasing, the research reflected a high degree of confidence in IT. Small businesses credited technology with multiple benefits for their businesses, including 77% experiencing improved customer service, 76% experiencing improved productivity and 45% of small business using technology to compete on a level playing field with competitors.

Despite a great appreciation of the business benefits of IT, due to a lack of resources 36% of small businesses are not able to employ an IT manager with the knowledge to maximise their IT investment.

For many businesses IT management is left either to the business owner (17%), the managing director (15%), and surprisingly over one in ten businesses hand over the IT decisions to the finance department (12%). The majority of businesses (20%) waited until the business averaged 75 staff before resources were focused on employing a network / IT manager. However, at the other end of the scale, 14% of businesses are not employing an IT manager until they reach over 200 staff – which left the job of managing IT predominantly in the lap of the Managing Director, or the business owner, or to an outsourced managed service provider.