3 Things Small Businesses Want From Their IT Providers

By Brandon Garcin, Content Marketing Manager, Continuum

The IT services market is a unique one, and the SMB niche within it is even further refined. Small and medium-sized businesses have far fewer resources (and minimal manpower) when compared to their enterprise counterparts — and traditionally, these restrictions have prevented smaller organizations from gaining access to emerging technologies and infrastructure solutions.

However, the advent of SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) solutions and the cloud have turned this notion on its head — and today, the SMB IT services market is booming.

For managed IT services providers (MSPs), the news gets even better. According to a March 2015 report from CompTIA, only 17 percent of SMBs say that they’re exactly where they want to be with technology — and 43 percent claim to have some idea about where they would like to go, but are unsure of exactly how to achieve those goals. These statistics should be music to your ears, as they illustrate one of the greatest advantages that local providers can have over big-box retailers — the ability to act as strategists, not simply as hardware or software vendors. The opportunity is out there, it’s simply a matter of getting out and capitalizing on it.

But what exactly are SMBs looking for in an IT provider? What unique requirements do these smaller organizations have, and how should you go about marketing and selling to them?

The SMB landscape is all about relationships. Products come and go (all too quickly in this industry), software evolves, and technology requirements change — but business owners always value strong, positive relationships. Of course, the technology offerings in your portfolio matter, without question; but when targeting SMB accounts, the value you’re bringing to the table as a partner is equally important.   

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