Thursday, 25 December 2014 Blog ehdf

Top IT Trends for SMBs in 2015

Today, the pace of change in IT is greater than ever before. Just when you think that you have adopted the latest technology solutions for your business, a new trend is being touted as ‘the next big thing’! In today’s competitive business environment, it has become imperative to not just stay informed, but stay ahead.

As 2014 comes to an end, here are some IT trends that will matter the most to SMBs in the coming year:

Cloud Adoption

Industry research indicates that a large number of SMBs intend to migrate to the cloud. Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) is expected to grow from $60m in 2013 to $138m in 2017. As the market continues to mature, we will see an increased adoption of public cloud services – this growth will come mostly from the SMBs. The adoption of public cloud will continue to grow as vendor offerings evolve and various security apprehensions get addressed. Organizations have also started to realize the numerous benefits associated with public cloud and this will drive higher adoption.

Enhanced Data Backup, Monitoring and Management

Every year, data loss costs businesses millions of dollars and in the aftermath of a disaster, 50% of small companies never recover. In 2015, there will be an increased uptake for backup and IT monitoring and management services within the SMB sector.

eHDF recently launched managed remote backup services which effectively perform daily backup of critical information by maintaining two copies of data – one locally at the customer’s premises and the other at a remote location via a secured network.

We also expect high uptake of remote monitoring and management services in 2015. As IT infrastructure continues to be an integral part of an organization, partnering with an IT services provider for proactive monitoring and management of IT systems will be the key to cost-effective and fully supported, highly available IT infrastructure.

Other Trends

Mobility: SMBs must be prepared to conduct business over mobile devices. For example, more and more companies will want to facilitate mobile payment systems

Big Data: Gartner says the demand for Big Data is growing, and enterprises will need to reassess their competencies and skills to respond to this opportunity

The Internet of Everything (IoE): IoE brings together people, process, data, and things to make networked connections more relevant and valuable than ever before. This will unleash a wave of new possibilities for data gathering, predictive analytics and IT automation

BYOD: The Bring Your Own Device movement will continue to define the workplace in 2015, with SMBs embracing the practice in increasing numbers

Lastly, we see more and more companies working with external service providers in an effort to reduce costs and focus on innovating and streamlining the business.