Annual Survey of SMB Companies Highlights Continued Growth of Outsourcing IT Services, Especially Cloud IT Services
NEW YORK, July 26, 2016 – Kaseya®, the leading provider of complete IT management solutions for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and small- to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), today announced the results of its annual IT operations benchmark survey which offers insight into the success drivers for IT groups at SMBs.
The survey, based on input from 1,200 respondents from SMBs globally, compares the practices of IT departments based on their IT management maturity level. The IT management maturity model, developed by Kaseya specifically for SMBs, consists of five levels:
- Reactive: Responding to individual user challenges and requests
- Efficient: Having a systematic approach to solving known issues and dealing with daily tasks
- Proactive: Taking a proactive approach to IT management, automating repetitive tasks and many remedial actions
- Aligned: Tracking and managing against SLAs of availability and performance expectations
- Strategic: Achieving IT operational excellence and taking a strategic role in driving business innovation
Strong Correlation Between High Revenue Growth and IT Management Maturity
According to Kaseya’s research, there is a strong correlation between the maturity level of an IT organization and their company’s revenue growth rate. 36 percent of the companies with the higher IT maturity levels (Strategic and Aligned) have grown their revenue at greater than 10 percent between 2014 and 2015. Only 21 percent of the less mature companies (companies falling in the Reactive, Efficient or Proactive categories) saw revenue growth grow greater than 10 percent.
Outsourcing IT Services Important for Mature IT Organizations
The survey findings also indicate that more mature IT organizations highly leverage outsourced services, such as backup and recovery, virtual desktop services, remote monitoring and management, and private cloud management, to enable their success. Companies at higher maturity levels outsource on average 20 percent more services than those at lower levels.
In addition, the more mature IT organizations use cloud services associated with PaaS, IaaS and SaaS 50 percent more often than the less mature IT organizations.
Other Highlights
Other highlights from Kaseya’s 2016 survey include:
- Forty-five to fifty percent of IT organizations at all levels of maturity indicate that they will be strongly considering outsource cloud services in the next 12 months.
Of the top three IT priorities for 2016, ‘Completing Projects on Time’ was the top priority named by respondents in the survey, followed by ‘Delivering Higher Service Levels’ and ‘Improving Customer Experience’; - Most (86 percent) of IT Groups at SMBs remain in the early stages of IT maturity. Only 14 percent of respondents consider their organization as mature, a three percent increase from last year’s survey;
- 44 percent of companies that fall in the higher maturity levels are required to report and achieve on their service level agreements (SLAs), and 48% track mean time to recovery (MTTR). These rates are 120% and 70% higher than the next highest cohort
To download the full report go to: http://www.kaseya.com/resources/best-practices/it-operations-survey-2016
Supporting Quote
“Most IT organizations at small and mid-size companies struggle to meet their goals and objectives due in large part to constraints on resources,” said Kirk Feathers, VP customer enablement for Kaseya. “In contrast, those organizations that have reached a higher level of IT maturity by automating mundane activities, standardizing and streamlining processes, and leveraging cloud services, have the time to focus on IT projects that drive business results and end-user satisfaction. We’re pleased that Kaseya is able to offer solutions that help businesses at all maturity levels to achieve these results, leading to improved overall IT performance.”
