CompTIA Research

Summary: Making the Case for Managed Services - The Business Impact of IT Problems at SMBs

About the study

According to a recent CompTIA study, the biggest sales obstacle that managed service providers (MSPs) face is convincing prospective customers that they will realize a positive return on their investment. To address this issue, CompTIA conducted customer research to help MSPs quantify the value of key managed-service benefits. Initial interviews with MSPs - some well established, others new to managed services - found that while their value propositions often center on reducing IT problems, they struggle in particular to quantify the business impact of these problems at prospective customers.

Therefore, the research focus was on understanding the frequency and costliness of problems such as spyware, viruses, and server and network downtime, in the context SMB organizations (firms with 10-200 PC users). Two separate surveys were conducted - one with SMB IT professionals and the other with SMB end-users. Both surveys targeted key industries including
financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and professional services. The findings provide extensive data on the total business costs of common IT problems at SMBs, and the potential for managed services to reduce those costs.

Sample of Key Findings

• More than 1-in-4 end-users reported having their productivity impacted by a spyware infection during just the prior six months. Of those more than one-third reported getting multiple infections.
  
  
• However, IT professionals with responsibility for SMB desktop support perceived the spyware problem as much less severe. The average respondent reported a spyware incidence of only about 11 incidents per 100 users per year. The median respondent reported only 4.5 incidents per 100 users - about one-tenth of what end users reported.
  
  
• The average infected user reported "living with" their spyware problem for 18 work hours - more than two full workdays - before getting it repaired.
  
  
• The average infected user reported that their spyware infection reduced their work productivity by up to 32%. However these figures varied significantly by industry and job role.
  
  
• 44% of network professionals serving SMBs reported having a network device go down for at least one hour (during work hours) during the past year. In addition, 37% reported having the primary network server go down for at least an hour.
  
  
• Remote monitoring services were found to significantly reduce network downtime. The average network-down incident was nearly 50% shorter when the affected device/server was covered by a remote monitoring managed service.
  
  
• The average end-user reported that network downtime reduces their work productivity between 49% and 69%, depending on the length of downtime. Again, responses varied significantly by industry and job role.

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