IT servicing needs to be improved, says Aussie SMEs

SMEs in Australia look at telecommunications as a way to support their business, said Caludio Castelli, senior analyst at Ovum.

Of the 100 SMEs (between 20 and 1000 employees across several industries) interviewed, 73 percent believes investing in the latest telecoms solutions can make their business more successful.

These companies will focus their spending on solutions that make a direct impact on their business performance and provide a clear return on investment.

However system integrators (SIs)/IT service provider will face more challenges with these customers, as they are will be more likely to go for hosted services rather than deploying solutions by themselves or with the help of SIs 

"Hosted solutions are normally less customised and many companies (especially larger ones) will need services and solutions to match exactly with their business," said Castelli.

"[IT&C providers] will need to find additional value on customizations and focus on their business benefits and on the short term ROIs.

"The key point for them will be how to show and deliver services that will help customer to have more efficient process and face the economic challenges."

Castelli told CRN, system integrators will more likely focus on larger companies as their requirements are normally not fully addressed by hosted offerings and packages.

In addition, companies with a dynamic profile tend to offer more opportunities for SIs. It's also interesting to see that despite the high satisfaction rates for service providers, SMEs see some areas which can be improved.

"Reliability is a point where SMEs want service providers to improve," said Castelli.

"They also want better support services surveyed companies see rooms for improvements on the response time to clear faults and 36 percent would like to get better access to helpdesks and fault reporting processes.

"SIs should focus on reliable services and better support and fault fixing."

Overall, SMEs like simplicity when dealing with their providers, he said. 

Around 83 percent of the SMEs in Australia prefer to purchase all their fixed and mobile telecoms services from a single source.

"Bundling multiple services including fixed and mobile represents additional opportunities for providers," said Castelli.

"However these bundles have to offer commercial benefits when compared to the stand-alone offerings.

"Most of the SMEs (66 percent) still believe that price is the most important factor when selecting providers."