/>iNode4, a provider of cloud and data center services, reports positive news in the realm of IT outsourcing for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom (UK). Just how positive? Well, according to the Node4 2015 IT Infrastructure Report titled Responding to the IT Infrastructure Challenge, the quantity of UK SMEs surveyed for the report that fully outsource their IT infrastructure increased to 6% in 2015, a 600% increase from the 1% of UK SMEs surveyed for the 2014 report.
The growth represented by the survey respondents, together with a lack of change in the number of UK SMEs surveyed that outsource at least part of their IT infrastructure, indicate that even these small- and mid-sized business recognize the benefits offered by a fully outsourced solution. In addition to this growth, Node4 reports an overall positive outlook for the IT outsourcing industry for UK SMEs and explains its view of the pragmatic approach that UK SMEs are adopting as follows: “[w]hereas previously they may have shied away from giving up ‘control’ of their IT infrastructure, now cloud services and outsourcing are seen as a shortcut to achieving the streamlined IT provision that their business needs.”
Certain other findings from Node4’s survey of UK SMEs are highlighted below:
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48% of survey respondents reported that their businesses could not survive for more than 12 hours without their critical IT infrastructure, and 70% could not survive for 24 hours.
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60% of survey respondents expected their IT budget to increase in 2015, and only 5% expected an IT budget decrease.
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50% of survey respondents had adopted some level of cloud-based IT infrastructure.
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Survey respondents’ leading concern with respect to their IT infrastructure was the infrastructure’s reliability, followed in turn by infrastructure reliance on hardware that may fail and infrastructure security.
The 2015 IT Infrastructure Report was prepared by Node4 using a survey of 250 “IT strategy business decision makers” in businesses that employ between 50 and 500 employees.
