New IT Model a Good Fit for SMBs

Top 10 Technology Trends for 2015

In 2014, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman introduced what the company calls a “new style of IT.” It revolves around Big Data, social media, mobile computing devices and the cloud working as an integrated infrastructure for businesses. In fact, it seems that was most of the impetus behind the company’s big move to divide the company’s operations between its printer and PC business and its enterprise hardware and services.

It seems now, though, that the split won’t just provide better software and services for enterprise-level businesses. According to the B2B News Network’s Digital Journal, small to midsize businesses (SMBs) will see a huge benefit from adopting these technologies in their core IT strategy:

What does this next generation mean for small and mid-sized businesses? Through simplified platforms and solutions which can be integrated, businesses can expect to see enhanced productivity, reduced costs, leaner and more flexible work environments, a greater ability to accumulate data, and an improvement to the customer experience.

In the article, Raj Thakur, servers and converged systems general manager for HP South-Pacific, says that SMBs will likely be faster to adopt “these increasingly diverse solutions” than their clunky, enterprise-sized counterparts. The new technologies are:

“What [SMBs] want for their business and they’ll move quickly because they don’t have to deal with the bureaucracy or internal processes, is to likely consume technology as a service. They don’t have the legacy compared to the large enterprises, and so they’ll leapfrog. I think the minute they find the right solution … In 2015 and 2016 you’ll start to see a big jump.”

With an increased interest and adoption of these emerging technologies, we could also see, as Thakur describes, “niche service providers” providing specialized apps and analytics created just for SMBs. This would take the adopted solutions beyond just a good idea for IT and create a more custom business service that can change the game for SMBs looking to grow business in this modern world of technology.

As the world becomes more and more reliant on data as a huge factor for growth, it’s no doubt that even smaller businesses will see the need to adopt flexible technologies that enable them to capture, manage, and extrapolate information from data to make sound business decisions and bring customers the care and experience they are looking for.

Kim Mays has been editing and writing about IT since 1999. She currently tackles the topics of small to midsize business technology and introducing new tools for IT. Follow Kim on Google+ or Twitter.