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 | Mobility in Today's SMB Workforce
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 There's an unfair stereotype that SMBs are
behind the curve when it comes to keeping up with the latest
technology, but surveys conducted by the Computing Technology Industry
Association (CompTIA) shows that it's not an accurate
assumption.
Nearly three quarters of polled SMBs
have at least one employee telecommuting, and on average, seven percent
of their workforce works from home on one or more days of the week.
Over 90% of the surveyed SMBs also indicated that they have one or more
employees travelling on business at least once a
week.
Steven Ostrowski, corporate public relations
manager for CompTIA stated "I think too often when we say 'small
business,' we think of a mom-and-pop operation that's just selling in
the neighborhood. More and more, it's just not that way anymore.
They're competing regionally, nationally and globally, and in a lot of
ways, it's the technology that allows them to do
so."
Of the over 500 American SMBs polled 44% of
them stated that they had plans to invest in smart phones over the next
year. 32% plan to invest in VPN's over the next year. While over 80% of
the SMBs indicated that they were satisfied with their current IT and
communications systems when it comes to giving a boost to efficiency in
managing day-to-day affairs, nearly three quarters of those said
deploying convergence technologies would allow for more effective
internal and external communications, which all of them see as having
high strategic importance.
Ostrowski thinks SMBs are
willing to make the necessary investments. One in three of the SMBs
surveyed said they considered themselves to be early adopters of
technology. "They are looking for solutions that will help them do
ubsiness better. I think, historically, we've thought of small
businesses as being laggards when it comes to adopting new techonology.
That's no longer the case. The gap between the early adopters and the
later adopters is decreasing."
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