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Canadian companies strongly embracing IT technology

January 6, 2007

According to a Cisco Net Impact study released Jan. 4, as a whole, many Canadian companies are strongly embracing sophisticated IT technologies to help them improve customer service.

However, IT firms, equipment vendors and various service providers still encounter barriers they need to overcome in servicing the small and medium-size business market.

Conducted in June and July of 2006 by research consultancy Illuminas, the study polled senior decision makers from 200 Canadian firms, each employing fewer than 500 workers.

The increasing complexity of IT implementations among SMEs is what stood out in the study, says Jay Shutter, managing director of Illuminas. “The infrastructure, when you look at what’s installed, is very similar to the enterprise,” he notes.

For example, 75 percent of the companies surveyed are looking at the same kind of application functions as enterprises, including finance, accounting and CRM (customer relationship management), explains David De Abreu, v.p. of commercial operations at Cisco Canada.

This doesn’t mean they’re using exactly the same technology as larger organizations though, Shutter notes. “When they say CRM they’re not talking about a Siebel or Oracle system,” he says. “It’s not the same level of enterprise technology, but they use the technology in the same fashion as a large enterprise – to provide information faster and the ability to do things online.”

However, even if SMEs see real value in new technology, there are significant barriers to overcome. The three biggest are budget, time and a lack of skilled IT staff.

“What we’ve seen is 37 percent of them have full-time IT staff,” De Abreu says. “The rest of them are looking for the small and medium partners to deliver, implement and support a lot of the infrastructure.”

While small and medium-size businesses generally have a positive perception of external service providers, there is room for improvement.

Fifty-one per cent of survey respondents agreed with the statement that outside providers offered scalable solutions for SMEs.

On average, about 47 percent of companies surveyed thought IT providers understood their business needs. Approximately 55 percent were happy with after-sale support.

“There’s no question that one of the key takeaways is the technology industry still needs to do a better job of providing the solutions and resources for the SME market,” Shutter says.

The survey will help Cisco shape its SME strategy going forward, De Abreu says.

He added “we’re going to use it to create solutions strategies with our partners to remove some of the barriers such as lack of budget and lack of time.”

Source: IT World Canada