Small study: IT in SMB - USA vs Russia

At the end of 2016, SalesForce conducted a survey among 300 small and medium business owners in the United States. The survey concerned the use of IT technologies in their companies. Under the impression of several figures, I decided to ask similar questions to acquaintances from among the top managers of the Russian SMB and compare the results obtained. There were not many answers, but from absolutely different regions of the country.

He was confused because attention was drawn by the very first question from SalesForce: “Do you have at least one IT specialist in your staff?”


Do you have at least one IT specialist? (USA)

83% of Americans answered no. In our case, the opposite is true - 83% of managers of SMB enterprises in Russia have at least one IT specialist in their staff.
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Do you have at least one IT specialist? (Russia)

72% of American entrepreneurs choose IT solutions for their enterprise on their own, and 28% donate a question to a co-owner or partner. Only in 4% of cases, the decision is made by specialized specialists.


Who in your organization makes a decision on the procurement of an IT solution? (USA)

In Russia, the situation is more correct: the general and the technical decide approximately equally. The category “Someone else” can be easily attributed to system administrators, programmers and other technical staff younger (they hardly ask merchants and marketers), therefore, in general, specialized people in Russia deal with core issues. But without accountants, of course, anywhere:


Who in your organization makes a decision on the procurement of an IT solution? (Russia)

Then, the Anglo-Saxons asked: “What factor influences the choice of the solution the most?” It turned out that Price decides in second place Usability, and third place - Compatibility with current IT infrastructure.


What factor most influences the choice of a particular solution / equipment for your organization? (USA)

In the Homeland, the Trust in the manufacturer prevails, in the second place - Compatibility and Usability. The price was only in third place. She shares it with the Time for introduction. Of course, money is not the main thing for us! First of all, the atmosphere between people and the pleasure of the process.


What factor most influences the choice of a particular solution / equipment for your organization? (Russia)

It would be logical to ask, and what percentage of your annual budget goes to IT? So did. It turned out that in the North American United States there are even those who do not spend anything at all (I wonder what kind of business they have?). And the majority of respondents allocate up to 24% of the annual budget for IT.


How much %% of the annual budget the company spend on IT? (USA)

In the Russian Federation, the results are quite comparable, but "spending nothing" is much more:


How much %% of the annual budget the company spend on IT? (Russia)

Where does this money go? Most of all in America they spend on iron, then financial software goes and they close the top three - office applications.


How is your IT spending distributed in annual terms? (USA)

When interviewing Russian people, I decided to change the answers a bit and included the item “IT personnel salary”. As they say - it's good to be an IT person, and being a good IT person is even better! As for the rest, the results are comparable with our “Western partners” and are quite expected: we spend the most on iron, software takes second place.


How is your IT spending distributed in annual terms? (Russia)

Further in the study is a detailed analysis of the software used. It is about customer relations and the place of technology in this relationship. If it's interesting to meet in person, I ask, everything is here. However, for me as a representative of the hardware manufacturer, you can stop there.

Lyrical digression

I spent a significant part of my work in small IT companies: a system software developer, games, a small system integrator ... I remember that at least 1 system administrator was everywhere. Often, when the admin went on vacation or quit, the trouble started: either the mail would fall, the site would crash, then the Wi-Fi would fall off. The people really suffered, because all technologies made up the lion's share of the necessary infrastructure for successfully fulfilling their duties. You can of course say: “then the specialists were weak, since they could not adjust everything normally,” however, no one is insured against any piece of hardware at any time. And it happened. I remember once it was necessary to just restart the server, while in the absence of the admin, they thought of it before - half a day had passed.

Freelance was already and it was possible to invite a person from the side. Sometimes they did it - the name of a friend of my acquaintance, who comes and repaired “for a bottle”. Then they began to have in stock a couple of three real freelancers who are ready to come to the rescue and already know our "kitchen". However, this was often associated with some kind of nerve and loss of valuable time.

In this regard, let me bring another question from the American study:

How much do you trust cloud solutions? (USA)


And we have this:

How much do you trust cloud solutions? (Russia)


And further:

What% of your IT is in the cloud? (USA)


What% of your IT is in the cloud? (Russia)


I have to ask the reader for forgiveness for the annoying mistake made while compiling the survey in Russia. Accidentally combined points 0% and 1-24%. It turned out that the picture in the fatherland is not clear! It is not clear how the votes are divided between these two points. Noticed a mistake only summing up the results. Terribly insulting! We can only say with confidence that in America cloud technologies penetrate a little deeper: unlike Russia, there are those who accumulate clouds from 25% to 100% of IT infrastructure.

But what caught my eye: despite the fact that both there and there, 2/3 of the respondents trust the clouds, only a few use them at full capacity.

Studying all this, that came to mind:

1. Most US SMB companies in the US do not keep their own IT people, probably because it is expensive;
2. Many are now well versed or think that they are well versed in technologies and are able to independently establish here or another IT system;
3. However, there are a number of systems that only trained professionals can design, build and customize. (for example, to set up a network in the office, set up several Wi-Fi zones, build a VPN, etc.);
4. It is strange, but quite sensible, that when choosing a solution, in our first place not the price, but trust in the manufacturer. It seemed to me that everything in the country had already passed into the mercantile plane. But no: do not have a hundred rubles, and have a hundred friends;
5. Obviously, the price is not only the value of hardware and licenses;
6. An important factor today is also the cost of installation, configuration and maintenance. And this is almost 100% of the cost of the corresponding highly qualified staff;
7. Self-tuning via the cloud systems, such as SD-WAN, will reduce staff costs;
8. Today, at every corner shout: clouds!, SDN !!, SD-WAN !!! .. However, not many use them.

Your opinion? I would be glad to read the opinion of colleagues working abroad.

Happy New Year, good luck in work, warmth, comfort and love at home!