UC growth is backed by small business spending

Large enterprises would seem to be the big fish that telecommunication providers are after. Big companies mean more employees and more devices to connect over a larger network. However, a new survey shows that while large business are still money makers, it's the small business that are helping to surge the UC market.

Business communication intelligence provider InfoTrack released new statistics in which the small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) interest in UC technologies and services is highlighted.

SMBs – those with fewer than 500 employees – represent 46 percent of U.S.-installed base VoIP lines, according to the new survey. Despite that, SMBs account for only 30 percent of the spending on UC application. The numbers also suggest that during the next five years, the growth of SMB spending will be more than twice the rate of large enterprise spending.

Dan Berthiaume analyzed a survey in a new article for MSPmentor. He notes that the appeal of UC to SMBs is understandable. He cites that SMB's operate at a considerable competitive disadvantage with larger rivals, and timely access to data is even more vital to their survival.

"SMBs are more likely to be reliant on remote employee-owned devices, since they are less likely to be able to afford office space or IT infrastructure, making UC a highly desirable means of bringing disparate employees on a wide range of personal devices together," wrote Berthiaume.

Implementing a UC solution can be a large undertaking and many small businesses lack the in-house expertise or resources to handle a deployment of that scale. Businesses in Ohio looking to deploy a new unified communication solution would be wise to partner with an IT consulting firm to ensure a complete solution.

From our offices in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, PRO OnCall is your single-source technology consulting service, offering managed IT support, unified communications solutions and on-call IT support.