By the end of this year, it's anticipated more than half of small and medium-size enterprise (SME) decision-makers will turn to smartphones to keep their businesses running efficiently.
This is according to Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, who spoke at the ITWeb Mobile Biz 2010 conference at Vodaworld in Midrand, this week.
“Interestingly, price is not the most important factor that's driving the growth of mobile Internet. Ease of use is cited by SMEs as the single most important instrument in mobile technology purchases.”
He added that quality, maintenance and reliability have also been rated as high priorities for the SME market.
Goldstuck explained that 65% of employees are on the move daily and need to be remotely connected to the office to be kept informed and up to date with business requirements.
Goldstuck said fixed-line Internet access is still the preferred mechanism for SMEs to access the Internet. World Wide Worx found 98% of SMEs use fixed-line Internet, 39% of SMEs use 3G data cards, and 77% use their cellphones to access the Internet.
On the topic of social networking, Goldstuck said: “This is the largest expected growth in SME communication to drive customer engagement.”
He said SMEs are also turning to new forms of communication. Currently, 5% of SMEs use blogs to drive their business and 28% of SMEs indicated they intend to use blogs in the near future. Around 16% of SMEs use instant messaging and 24% are making plans to use the technology in their business.
According to Goldstuck, 65% of top-level executives access the Internet via their mobile phone, out of a market average of 21%. In addition, 39% of executives access Internet banking via their mobile phone out of an overall market average of 12%.
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