The results of teh ChannelPro 2015 State of the SMB Channel are in: The survey of senior business leaders and industry veterans finds the channel is growing, particularly in the areas of cloud and managed services, and that more opportunity is ahead.
How is 2015 ending for you and your business? Are you as optimistic about your Business as Readers of ChannelPro?
“Optimism” sums up the findings of the ChannelPro 2015 State of the SMB Channel survey. More than 89 percent of survey respondents report increased revenue and profits from 2013 to 2014, and 92 percent expect another rise for 2015. Perhaps most important, the channel is poised for growth, with 48 percent of respondents planning to add headcount.
ChannelPro collected data electronically from more than 550 survey respondents, most of whom are senior business leaders and industry veterans. Among respondents, more than 87 percent are in management, 75 percent have been in business for at least 10 years, and 55 percent state that their firms generate $1 million-plus in revenue.
Practices and solutions that are generating the most profit for the channel include backup and disaster recovery (BDR), managed services, cloud solutions, remote monitoring and management (RMM), and security.
Cloud services continue to gain ground, with 77 percent of respondents providing these solutions today. The top five solutions offered are spam filtering, anti-virus, backup and disaster recovery (BDR), email hosting, and website hosting.
Today, 40 percent of respondent say that 10 to 49 percent of their revenue is now generated by cloud services, and 50 percent expect increased cloud growth in 2015.
Managed services remain the linchpin of channel offerings, with 87 percent of respondents providing these solutions currently. Moreover, a vast majority (83 percent) are generating 49 percent of their review from managed services. And growth in this area continues apace, with 46 percent of respondents expecting growth in this area in 2015.
Looking ahead, digital signage, Google Apps, managed print services (MPS), and videoconferencing top the list of future growth areas, according to respondents. In the coming months we are compiling the data for our ChannelPro 2016 State of the SMB Channel report and will share it with all ChannelPro readers.
