If an SMB Tech Company Falls in the Forest

When President Obama announced the formation of a Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (Jobs Council) in January, CompTIA was alarmed that none of the 23 members appointed by the president currently run a small business. In response, CompTIA’s public policy team reached out to Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)  to share data on who makes up the IT industry and encourage her to contact the White House to ask that the Jobs Council include a representative from the small IT business community.  The Congresswoman’s district, like most congressional districts, is dominated by small businesses that prove jobs to thousands in the community.

The President’s Jobs Council is supposed to provide non-partisan advice to the President on how to strengthen the nation’s economy.  The small IT firm has a crucial perspective that is needed as America works to right its economy and grow into the future. 

Rep. Sanchez embraced our recommendation by organizing some of her colleagues to sign a letter to the President urging that “small information technology businesses be represented on your Jobs Council.”  We are busy sharing that letter and trying to build momentum for such an outcome. 

But we need your help.  Let your representatives in Congress know that this is important to the technology industry.  We need to be heard when it comes to tax reform, promoting innovation, making healthcare IT work, and so much more. 

And here is the point of this exercise …. Washington D.C. can be like the proverbial forest where a constituency can fall on deaf ears if lawmakers do not understand who you are and why your vote matters.  CompTIA has been reaching out to the Administration and members of Congress and their staff to explain that the IT industry is far more than just a few hundred IT manufacturers. 

In fact, the raw numbers tell a very compelling story.  According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau Economic Census of U.S. Businesses, the research firm IBIS World and our own CompTIA analysis:

• In 2010, there were approximately 385,000 information technology firms in the United States.  The vast majority of IT firms are small businesses, defined as having fewer than 50 employees. This equates to roughly 366,000 information technology firms.


• U.S. IT firms employed nearly 2.7 million workers in 2010.


• The IT services segment employed about 1.5 million workers in 2010, making it the largest segment of the IT industry. The second largest segment is software. The hardware manufacturing segment is relatively small in terms of the number of firms and total employment.


• The U.S. IT industry generates more than $1 trillion annually in economic activity through the sale of hardware, software, services and communication equipment. (Source: IDC).

 We have power in numbers, but we need to let people know what those numbers are.