SBs in Poland to spend $1B on computing

NEW YORK, US: Small businesses (SBs or companies with up to 99 employees) in Poland will spend close to US$1 billion on computing and Internet-related products and services this year, up some 18 per cent over 2006. This level of spending represents almost 50 per cent of the total SB spending this year, according to the latest study by New York-based Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc.

“Poland is enjoying a very strong economic growth, the highest among all its Eastern European Union counterparts,” says Pauline Courtiau, New York-based Analyst at AMI Partners. “This translates into significant capital injection in all business sizes especially in the small and medium businesses segment (SMBs or companies with up to 999 employees).”

Technology adoption significantly differs between small businesses and medium businesses (MBs or companies between 100 and 999 employees). SBs are still in “Wave I” of technology adoption, in which they build their basic infrastructure. On the other hand, most MBs have moved into “Wave III,” where they are starting to leverage their network to add value to the business by connecting with suppliers and resellers.

SMBs have increased their IT and telecom spending by 15 per cent over the last year with the biggest chunk being spent on computing-related products. “In Poland, SBs key IT issues for the next 12 months are to implement high-speed Internet and replace old hardware with newer, improved ones,” says Courtiau. “Conversely, most MBs in Poland have their basic hardware and software in place and are now looking at protecting their networks.”

Enhancing enterprise IT security, training employees on IT skills, and increasing IT storage capacity are some of the strategies these businesses will look to. SMBs increased their security and storage spending by over 17 per cent over last year as a number of firms have faced some sort of security breach and loss of critical data in the recent past and are therefore becoming more risk averse.

“Most Poland MBs operate in a highly managed IT environment and, hence, do not outsource much of their IT service and support,” says Courtiau. “This is in contrast to SBs, where only 10 per cent of the firms have dedicated IT staff.”

“While showing a wide range of differences, Poland SMBs also have many similarities,” says Courtiau. “For example, they have a predilection for assembled or whitebox desktop computers but those who buy branded PCs seem to prefer Hewlett Packard or Toshiba when it comes to notebook purchases.”

Hewlett Packard has strong brand recognition in Poland, and ranks first with no close competition in printer and server usage among Poland SMBs. Another similarity is that a majority of SMBs utilize PC-based external storage. This simple, less costly storage tool usage makes logical sense for businesses where major issues hindering business growth are capital driven, such as rising operating costs and insufficient cash flow.