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Intel says UK SMEs still use fax, don’t use cloud

2nd November 2011

Small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) in the UK are “slow to adopt new technologies such as tablets and cloud computing because of a lack of financial and human resources”, according to the Intel Business Index, an independent study of 3,000 IT decision-makers and IT users.

SMEs are also putting themselves at risk of data breaches because of a lack of awareness around security regulations and investment in security technologies, the computing giant claims.

Lack of resources

According to the Intel Small Business Index, insufficient financial and human resources prevents almost half (46.3%) of IT decision makers from adopting new technologies.

Over a third (36.4%) of SMEs don’t plan to buy new laptops, desktop PCs, tablets or smartphones in the next 12 months. Furthermore, 78% say that the lack of government funding prevents them from training staff in new technologies.

The study also revealed that while the adoption of new technologies such as tablets for work purposes is on the rise (17% of IT decision makers planning to buy or lease an iPad or another tablet for use for work purposes in the next year), legacy technologies still play an important role for many companies. A fax machine is still used daily by 37% of IT decision-makers and 40% of IT users.

Graham Palmer, managing director of Intel UK, said of the study:

“It’s clear that as SMEs tighten their purse strings, buying new technologies falls to the bottom of the list of priorities. Yet, it’s important that IT decision makers weigh the advantages, such as the increased efficiency and flexibility delivered by mobile devices, against the cost.

“In many sectors, such as the creative industries and retail, using outdated legacy technologies could even result in the loss of your competitive advantage.”

The index shows that despite the perceived popularity of tablets, they are currently used for work purposes by just 1.4% of IT users. In contrast, a laptop is used by 36.4%, and a smartphone by 16.2% of IT users.

Security not a priority?

Unsurprisingly, the Intel study also revealed that a number of its respondents (one in ten of IT decision makers) have been the victim of an IT incident in the last 12 months which resulted in business downtime. Despite this and many recent, widely publicised security breaches by enterprises, most SMEs (64%) spend less than 10% of their IT budget on protecting their business against security breaches. Only 6.8% of SMEs use between 21 and 40% of their IT budget on security.

Confusion about cloud

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Intel’s study was the current level of SME cloud adoption. Despite many other recent studies suggesting otherwise, only 13.8% of IT decision makers said they had bought into ‘cloud services’. Moreover, nearly half (49%) of IT users and a quarter (23%) of IT decision makers weren’t even sure what cloud computing was.

This was further demonstrated by the contradiction between those who said they didn’t use cloud computing but actually used cloud applications. For example, over half (57.2%) of Amazon/Ebay users and nearly half (48%) of Google Docs users claim that they did not use cloud computing, outlining the confusion still surrounding ‘cloud’ terminology.

“The index highlights that cloud awareness and adoption is lagging behind the hype,” added Graham Palmer.

“It’s important that cloud technology companies educate SMEs about the implications of these technologies, including secure access to the cloud and the physical location of the data, because regulatory compliance may dictate how the cloud can be used. Cloud computing can be a very cost-effective option for many SMEs, but nobody should take the plunge without considering the impact on their business.”

For more on the Intel Small Business Index, visit www.intel.com