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Verizon Business' Small Business Chief said SMBs want to get to the cloud, but lack the know how
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A personal touch could help get them there, but the market currently lacks a sufficient solution, she said
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The operator just released its fourth annual State of Small Business report
The cloud holds plenty of opportunity for small and medium businesses (SMBs) and requires less upfront investment from smaller players with little to no legacy infrastructure to deal with. But getting into the cloud requires a certain amount of digital know how. That can be a problem for SMBs who don’t know where to start when there’s no physical cloud storefront they can walk into to ask for help.
“I have seen everyone trying to get into a place where they are trying to be catering at scale to all sizes,” Verizon Business’ Head of Small Business Aparna Khurjekar said of cloud providers in an interview with Silverlinings. “What I do see missing though is the local presence, the human presence.”
She continued: “It’s kind of the travesty of 'I’m trying to go digital and I need to be digitally savvy to go access that digital.' That is where I think the local nature of just walking into a store to talk to somebody and get started comes into play in bigger ways than you could imagine.”
Digital, in this case, is a synonym for moving to the cloud, she said.
According to Khurjekar, part of the problem is that there are just so many cloud options on the table, with software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions available for virtually every business need. That’s great when you know what you’re looking for. But for an inexperienced SMB owner, it can “almost overwhelm you,” she said.
Yes, she noted, there are rating engines that provide reviews of the quality of different SaaS solutions, but there doesn’t seem to be a solution that takes into account an individual SMB’s unique needs.
Khurjekar’s comments mesh with the findings from a recent Dynatrace report, which noted while a majority of organizations want to invest in DevOps automation they lack a plan for implementation because they don’t know where to start.
Interestingly, Khurjekar said Verizon is stepping up to try to solve this problem. She indicated the operator is slowly working to create a network of mentors who can step in and help. These are a part of its “Digital Ready” platform for small businesses, which also includes training courses and an option to help search for grants.
The platform is free to use and is open to all SMBs, not just Verizon customers.
It’s not entirely clear how many SMBs are using the platform, but Khurjekar said “we do see quite a bit in terms of a take rate.”
Report findings
The conversation with Khurjekar came just after Verizon released its fourth annual State of Small Business report, which is based on survey responses from 681 small to midsize business executives in the U.S.
Key stat as far as the cloud and related technologies are concerned include:
- 41% of respondents said they added or upgraded secure cloud backup services in the past year, a figure down from 43% in 2022’s report and 46% in 2021.
- Meanwhile, 53% said they added or upgraded their high-bandwidth internet connection while 30% added or upgraded application development services. The latter number was flat year on year.
- Interestingly, 40% of respondents said they don’t currently use artificial intelligence (AI) services and are unaware of how they might help their business. Among those who have already adopted AI (14% of respondents), the largest portion (23%) were in the entertainment and recreation industry.
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