Venyu Blog

The economic nose dive over the last 18 months has resulted in all kinds of casualties: from retailers to “real estaters” and virtually every segment in-between. Most are either comatose or on life support showing little to no promise of recovery.

One patient, however, the SMB – perennially the bedrock of the American economy has seen its pulse growing stronger by the day. As Brian Burch writes in the latest Information Week, although they are small in size, they are large in number: roughly 75% of all businesses in North America are SMBs. In 2010, they comprise a total addressable technology market of $55B in the U.S., making them a key component of the U.S. economy.

The article – Top 10 Misconceptions About SMB Technology Needs – is an interesting read, primarily because of two convergent paths. First the premise: IT Decision makers in traditional SMBs feel that IT is too complicated and they cannot manage the necessary changes to remain competitive. As a result, SMB decision makers inadvertently develop misconceptions about their technology needs.

Secondly, three of these 10 misconceptions including “I Don’t Have to Worry About IT Security,” “My Company Is Too Small To Consider A Virtualized Environment” and  “I Can Wait To Implement A Backup/Recovery Plan” for me at least track like a needle in an old Victrola phonograph. In other words the themes are universal and played back daily throughout SMBs.

“I Don’t Have To Worry About IT Security.”

According to Burch, most SMBs operate under the assumption that no hacker would be interested in targeting their company. And while it is true that many hackers tend to focus on large enterprises to inflict the most damage, when they unleash attacks that go after Google and Facebook, SMBs are targeted along with the global players. On October 26, 2009, the Washington Post reported that, according to the FBI, cybercrooks emptied more than $100M out of SMB bank accounts in 2008 and 2009, leveraging bank login information partly accessed through social media sites.

No company, large or small, can afford a security breach. The repercussions are staggering: loss of revenue, customer confidence, productivity, and reputation can bring business to a grinding halt. Often, SMBs underestimate how much IT security (both internal and external) they really need.

“My Company Is Too Small To Consider A Virtualized Environment.”

The maturation of desktop virtualization technology has made thin computing a viable alternative to traditional PCs for many organizations, including SMBs. With the pace of business promising to pick up in 2010, virtualized environments offer many advantages to SMBs with a progressive IT department. While thin computing may not be for every SMB, those that employ remote workers or whose business is concerned with the security of mission-critical data are viable candidates to consider a virtual environment.

Client virtualization users require 67 percent less IT support and administration labor and over a five year period, these cost reductions can represent more than $16,000 of cumulative cash flow benefits per end user.

“I Can Wait To Implement A Backup/Recovery Plan.”

Business disruptions can create legal and insurance ramifications that impact the bottom line. However, the expense and complexities associated with implementing backup storage solutions often push it down the priorities list. How long could your company survive if your data was lost or corrupted? The answer will help you determine how important a backup plan is to your company’s success.

In sum, if we’re pinning our hopes on SMBs to pull us out of the economic nose dive before we’re prone on the pavement like Wile E. Coyote, they have to adopt mid-sized and global companies’ mantra used to prosper in both good and not so good times: “In Technology We Trust.”