Small and medium-sized businesses are avid buyers of technology products, according to a new study released by Harte-Hanks Inc. at the DMDNY show. Some 72% of those surveyed are planning “significant” technology purchases (exceeding $5,000 per site) in the next 12 months.
Most of the purchasing executives at these firms rely heavily on the Internet to research their technology buying decisions, with 77% saying they rate the Internet as highly or very highly influential in their decisions. Trade shows are also highly influential, said 30% of respondents.
The study, conducted to help technology marketers target their campaigns to the small and medium-sized business (SMB) market, found that the hot technology areas are anti-virus software, firewalls and e-mail filtering systems.
Reaching the proper decision-maker at these companies can be tough, the study found. More than 50% of branch locations (which is a large portion of the SMB marketplace) must defer purchasing decisions for computers, networks and phone systems to the parent corporation.
Other findings showed that 31% of SMB use a third party to manage some part of their information technology infrastructure. The major areas outsourced are network configuration, system configuration and system upgrades.
More than 40% of the companies in the study that outsource a portion of the IT said that the third-party vendor performed a good portion, if not all of the company
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