Techaisle Blog

Intrinsic to positioning any IT-enabled solution is an understanding of the benefits that the customer anticipates obtaining from deployment of the technology. Buyers need to understand how the solution helps them to increase revenues, cut costs, improve efficiency or otherwise enhance shareholder value; vendors need to be able to position their offerings as a means to achieving these objectives.

While there is a close relationship between “analytics” and “Big Data” – and they are often conflated in the press – the two technologies follow somewhat different paths into SMB user environments. Techaisle research has found that analytics solutions tend to be driven by BDMs – business users looking for better ways of approaching high-priority business issues. In some cases, this requires access to vast quantities of high-velocity, variegated sources, which in turn demands a Big Data solution – but in contrast to analytics adoption, Big Data initiatives rely heavily on IT for implementation and ongoing management, and represents a solution area that requires collaboration between BDMs and ITDMs.

While SMB Big Data buyers view support for (predictive) analytics as their top acquisition driver, they also have distinct needs and preferences that suppliers must consider in building a sales and marketing strategy.

One interesting observation contained within Techaisle’s 2016 SMB & Midmarket Analytics Adoption survey results is the relationship between sales channel and analytics strategy. The survey of 1,116 US SMBs found that a higher percentage of businesses with an omni-channel approach that includes both online and offline sales channels are using analytics than those relying entirely on either online or offline sales. In fact, overall, 85% of omni-channel SMBs are using analytics and 38% are using big data solutions. On the planned side of the equation, another 46% of omni-channel SMBs are investigating use of big data technologies. Even the average spending on analytics by omni-channel SMBs is 3X that of eCommerce only SMBs and 6X of those that do not sell online.

Data illustrates that nearly 60% of SMBs (and almost three-quarters of midmarket firms) employing an omni-channel strategy are already using analytics to track website hits – a rate that is higher than for firms using ecommerce-only, and much higher than for firms that do not use online sales.

Another set of data adds context to this focus on website tracking. Omni-channel businesses tend not to be using particularly advanced approaches to analytics:

• 39% use “descriptive” analytics, and
• 30% have deployed “predictive” or “prescriptive” analytics.

However, omni-channel firms do tend to have some type of strategy – only 5% report that their use of analytics is ad hoc, vs. 13% of ecommerce-only firms and 18% of firms with no online sales.

The current analytics solution deployment & usage differs greatly from future plans within the omni-channel SMBs.  

In today’s SMB market, it is critical for vendors to build detailed understanding of the small and midmarket segments, and to align resources and strategies with requirements as SMBs move from initial experimentation with sophisticated solutions towards mass-market adoption.

In the report, Analytics and Big Data in the US SMB market, Techaisle analyzes over 1100 survey responses to provide the insight needed to build and execute on analytics and big data solution strategies for the small and midmarket customer segments. Techaisle’s deep understanding of SMB IT and business requirements enables vendors to understand the ‘why’ and ‘when’ of solution adoption, current and planned approaches to solution use, the benefits that drive user investments, and key issues in aligning with buyers and building and intercepting demand.

Highlights of data presented in this report include:

Founded by an engineer in 1991, New Belgium Brewing, a midmarket firm with 700 employees, uses technology across its entire business. Automation in engineering is in its DNA and data is at the core of its business success. Technology is pervasive within the organization and is used for manufacturing, quality, sales, operations and even sustainability needs and initiatives. In an interview with Techaisle, Jake Jakel, Technology Solutions manager at New Belgium Brewing said, “Technology is a huge part of what the company does to bring to market its Fat Tire Amber Ale beer. Our entire sales staff relies on data to be at their fingertips when they are out in the field selling our products and brands, and our non-field staff uses data from an analytics standpoint to understand what they are doing right and which areas need attention”.

A key challenge for New Belgium Brewing is managing growth, not only business growth but also corresponding growth of IT staff to support the business. It finds itself frequently caught in the medium sized business conundrum, the in-between phase where it is neither a small business nor a large enterprise. It has many IT personnel who are generalists supporting the business, and is trying to add specialists but is faced with issues such as at what pace should it add the specialists and in what areas should it add first. It is an area which is no different than other growth-oriented mid-market firms. In a Techaisle’s survey, we found that 36% of midmarket businesses have taken steps to address the need for what is sometimes referred to as “double deep” (with respect to IT and business experience) employees by employing IT specialists for the growth and rapid adoption of emerging technologies.