Vanessa Sorenson (Microsoft), Vlad Mitnovetski (Dicker Data) and Gretta Svendsen (Microsoft)
Credit: Microsoft / Dicker Data
Microsoft is directing partner attention to an expanding small and medium-sized business (SMB) opportunity across Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ), highlighting a base housing more than 2.7 million customers and a $16.7 billion total addressable market potential.
Such numbers confirm SMB as the largest commercial segment on both sides of the Tasman, an area in which new end-user demands are accelerating in relation to the deployment of digital technologies and utilisation of managed services.
Defined as typically ranging from sole traders to organisations with up to 300 employees, more than 2.2 million SMB customers currently exist in Australia, in addition to over 550,000 in New Zealand.
According to Capitalis findings -- research commissioned by Microsoft and Dicker Data -- local SMB spending on managed service providers (MSPs) and system integrators will grow 12 per cent annually until 2025, with investment specific to digital transformation technology and services hitting $16.7 billion in 2022.
But with millions of customers to engage, and billions of dollars to target, the partner ecosystem is missing the mark in terms of maximising the true potential of the SMB segment.
“There’s opportunity within the SMB space but our partner ecosystem isn’t directly lined up at this moment,” observed Gretta Svendsen, Head of SMB across A/NZ at Microsoft.
Despite acknowledging that a “strong ecosystem” servicing SMB customers already exists for Microsoft, Svendsen stressed that future success will require a shift in partner focus.
“We want partners to skate to where the puck is going, rather than where the puck is right now,” she explained. “This market is growing and is showing no signs o ..
Support the originator by clicking the read the rest link below.
