December 10, 2003 (Computerworld) --
Small and medium-size businesses have much different IT strategies than larger enterprises. Technology purchases by small-to-midsize businesses are often dominated by cash-flow issues. In addition, such businesses are more likely to tap value-added resellers and other vendor partners to fill technical skills gaps -- and they usually buy IT for immediate fixes to problems, according to analysts who spoke yesterday at The Yankee Group's 2003 SMB Forum in Waltham, Mass. Small and medium-size businesses "expect ROI on technology purchases in six months or less," whereas larger companies typically have more time to realize a return on investment, said Helen Chan, an analyst at Boston-based Yankee Group. Because of cash-flow issues and small budgets, small and medium-size businesses "spend only on what they think they need." That maps with Joe Trentacosta's experiences. Trentacosta, who joined Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO) as CIO last year, agreed that there's a tendency among small and medium-size businesses to acquire technology only when a piece of equipment breaks or an upgrade is needed. He wasn't at the conference, but was interviewed later by Computerworld. "When I came on board, applications were purchased and there was no strategic vision from the organization on how these applications would be pieced together to have one integrated system," he said. SMECO has an IT staff of about 40 people. Half of those people manage the cooperative's PC, WAN and telecom operations under an outsourcing agreement with Lockheed Martin Information Technology. The other half are a mix of in-house staffers and independent contractors. Unlike larger companies, which might have a broader range of in-house skills, SMECO has a small staff and a limited set of technical skills. That has pushed SMECO frequently to work with Bangalore, India-based Wipro Technologies to develop industry-specific applications, including a metered data repository written in J2EE and powered by an Oracle database. "We look to Wipro because of their subject matter expertise in the utility industry, as well as their technical skills," said Trentacosta. Vendors such as IBM, Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., Avaya Inc. and Verizon Communications are making an effort to capitalize on the IT needs of smaller businesses, because IT spending among large companies "has dried up," said Mike Lauricella, an analyst at Yankee Group. But attendees and analysts at the forum admitted that it's much harder and more expensive to identify sales opportunities with the fragmented base of 5.6 million small and medium-size businesses located in the U.S. That could change again once IT spending begins to lift among enterprise buyers, although conference attendees were mixed on whether big vendors would retreat from the small-to-midsize-company market and refocus on bigger clients. SaidLauricella, "It's more exciting to hunt for elephants."
"This pilot fish works at a telco that provides DSL hardware access to ISPs. Total number of users: in the..."
Read more...
"User stops at the desk of this pilot fish and informs him that the mouse and keyboard on the user's..."
Read more... Read more Management posts or See all Blogs
If you're like our 7,000 survey respondents, your paycheck this year has been flattened and your bonus obliterated. We offer 12 ways to plump up your paycheck.
By helping Intel with loosened 'Vista Capable' requirements, Microsoft 'severely damaged' its credibility, said an HP exec in a newly unsealed Feb. 2006 e-mail.
Deploying Windows Vista to the Desktop: Get It Right with Dell
Get this paper now! (Source: Dell) Dell has improved PC deployment activities through patent-pending automation technology and offers an array of services from planning a Windows Vista migration to post-deployment management. Download this white paper
Google's Universal Search for Business
Google's Universal Search for Business View this exclusive webcast, free, compliments of Google! Go to the webcast
Managing For Agility
Get the full Computerworld report for a limited time, compliments of Computerworld and IBM. Today's corporations need to bend without breaking. Agile IT operations can deliver products and services promptly, and then they can update and improve and reconfigure those resources as need be. But only good management practices will keep it all working together. In this Executive Briefing, we'll look at best practices for providing and managing IT in an on-demand world. Download this executive briefing
White Papers
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services.
With an estimated 40% of the world's information now residing behind a firewall, employee productivity is driven by the ability to quickly find key information no matter where it's stored across your organization. At Google, we believe in a simple premise: all of the information you need to be productive at work should be available through one search box, giving users real-time access to content across the enterprise and delivering a single, integrated, secure set of search results.
See your link here
Subscribe to
Computerworld 
or
Other Management Stories
Get this paper now!
Google's Universal Search for Business 
Read up on the latest ideas and technologies from companies that sell hardware, software and services.
The Enterprise Search Zone
Computerworld