Cloud technologies dominate the IT priorities of Canadian small businesses, according to a new survey from CDW Canada, a leading provider of technology solutions and services for Canadian organizations.
The majority of small businesses surveyed (62 per cent) identified cloud as the most impactful emerging technology to their business, compared to others such as Internet of Things (18 per cent) and artificial intelligence (12 per cent). Canadian small businesses also indicated they were already investing in the cloud, with 74 per cent currently hosting servers or applications in the cloud.
Nearly half of Canadian small businesses surveyed (49 per cent) were hosting between zero and 24 per cent of their infrastructure in the cloud, while only six per cent indicated they were completely hosted in the cloud.
Finding the right solution still a challenge
Canadian small businesses cited finding solutions that fit the needs of their business (36 per cent) and the cost of solutions and equipment (33 per cent) as their biggest IT challenges. Cost was also one of the primary factors in how they evaluate technology purchases (67 per cent), but equally important was value (67 per cent) and the overall solution itself (52 per cent).
Small businesses are largely still on premises
As organizations continue their adoption of cloud, the trend toward remote work is slowly taking shape – but a majority of Canadian small businesses still only allow a small number of employees to do so. Sixty-eight per cent of respondents say that 0 to 24 per cent of their workers work remotely, while only 10 per cent of small businesses indicated 75 per cent or more of their employees were currently working remotely.
Other key findings from CDW’s Small Business Survey include:
- Despite having a wide variety of devices for employees to work with, 76 per cent of workers are currently only using between one and two devices.
- Small businesses may not be seeing the impact of certain emerging technologies as they ranked big data (four per cent), blockchain (three per cent), and 3D printing (two per cent) well below others such as cloud, Internet of Things (IoT) and AI as technologies they expect will have the most impact on their business.
- Less than 10 per cent of respondents cited a decline in their IT budgets, demonstrating the continued importance of technology in driving business growth.
