A survey revealed that small businesses outsource call center support services as a means of keeping up the company’s technology needs. Open Access BPO gathers more key findings to show the current technology trend among growing companies.
The National Small Business Association (NSBA) released a survey that revealed how small businesses cope with their tech needs. One of the major findings states that outsourcing call center support services is common even to businesses with a small consumer base and budding revenues.
NSBA found out that 24% of small enterprises rely primarily on outsourcing firms for their tech support needs. Website maintenance is also a commonly outsourced duty, as 30% of the respondents said that they pay an outside firm to take care of this responsibility.
Another finding that the survey revealed is that mobility is a growing trend among growing companies. While desktops (87%), laptops (84%), and landlines (78%) remain to be office essentials, mobile devices such as smartphones (57%), cell phones (55%), and tablets (41%) are increasingly being used for business transactions. Telecommuting is also an emerging practice. Compared to the 44% that allowed their employees to do this in 2010, the 2013 rate is higher at 60%.
The survey asked what activities small companies conduct using the devices mentioned above. The results are as follows:
• Supply purchasing (85%)
• Bank account management (83%)
• Pay bills/electronic payments (72%)
• Payroll management (44%)
• Phone calls/teleconferencing (59%)
• Meetings/web conferencing (45%)
Inferring from the responses, the Internet is an important business tool even to the 72% that don t sell products and services online.
Despite the rise in certain tech trends, however, not that many small businesses utilize cloud computing technology. The majority, or 85%, has yet to include this in their arsenal, and there also others (2%) that still use dial-up to connect to the web. Not surprisingly, cost (38%) is the second biggest reason why small-budgeted companies don t use broadband and other high-speed Internet services.
In addition, only 18% of the surveyed businesses claimed to maintain a mobile website. This goes to show that while mobility is a workplace trend, it’s not used mainly for market engagement.
Conclusion
Keeping up with the latest innovations is very important to the success of a business, as 70% of the respondents asserted. However, most small companies find this challenging, mostly because of the high costs needed to maintain and upgrade technology (44%).
Security issues (42%) and lack of time (41%) are also blamed by those who have trouble keeping pace, so they turn to outsourcing as a means of addressing tech-related business aspects and needs. By sending business processes to a third party service provider, enterprises can divert their costs and focus on more important matters that are crucial for their growth.
