Owners of small and medium businesses in New Zealand and Australia feel disregarded in the IT sector in favour of enterprise customers, according to a survey conducted by cloud computing specialists EMC.
The survey, which canvassed over 1000 IT decision-makers in small ANZ businesses, found 65% of respondents were not satisfied with the level of customer service offered to SMBs.
62% find it difficult to find suitable solutions for their business needs, and 72% believe enterprises receive more favourable pricing arrangements when purchasing solutions.
Mark Oakey, marketing manager, storage platforms for EMC ANZ, says the findings come at a difficult time for SMBs.
"The findings are particularly worrying as SMBs face similar technology challenges to large businesses but have fewer resources to cope,” Oakey says.
"Technology is supposed to enable smaller organisations to be competitive with larger businesses; however this won’t be the case if the solutions don’t meet their needs or simply cost too much.
Only 10% of respondents firmly believed technology solutions were developed with SMBs in mind.
"We need to address this before it creates a digital divide between large, mid-sized and small businesses,” Oakey says.
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