Indian SMBs face a challenge vis-a-vis technology management though, with only one in four of India small businesses employing a full-time, internal, IT professional dedicated to managing their technology infrastructure. The situation is much better for the medium business segment where over eight in ten MBs have dedicated internal IT employees; however their main focus is on routine maintenance issues rather than strategic IT management.
Remotely managed information technology services (RMITS) is the new growth engine in the arena of IT services for Indian SMBs. According to AMI-Partners’ upcoming 2012 India Managed Services Study, the RMITS market share in 2012 grew by 28% year-on-year. That’s more than double the growth rate displayed by on-premise IT services in the same period. From an end-user perspective-over one-third of India SMBs prefer to receive a combined module of services.
“A key driver for the growth of RMITS is the fact that it provides India SMBs with hassle-free IT services from an expert IT service provider, reducing their dependence on in-house IT staff,” commented Dev Chakravarty, Manager of Research at AMI.
“Another interesting factor enhancing the usage of RMITS is the changing mindset of newer-generation SMBs—especially startups,” added Chakravarty, “where decision makers are much younger and highly Internet dependent mainly due to relations with global firms. They try their utmost to avoid downtime and stoppage of operations due to ICT infrastructure failure and delay in the arrival of engineers from IT service providers. Consequently, they favor RMITS, since such challenges are easily alleviated through remote monitoring and resolution.”