Study identifies behaviors-based segments in the US

NEW YORK, US: AMI’s segmentation of the US SMB telecommunications market reveals the presence of  four unique segments, of which two key segments are driving the bulk of adoption and spending on emerging high-growth areas, including hosted VoIP, premises-based IP-PBX and managed services (security, storage, network support, etc.).

These leading segments are also transforming the SMB landscape by rapidly implementing various elements of a unified communications (UC) portfolio, such as web conferencing, instant messaging (IM) and soft phones, among others. While comprising only 25-40 percent of all SMBs nationwide, these two segments drive 70-80 percent of spending on emerging communications solutions.

The report, titled “U.S. SMB Telecom/IP Communications and Managed Services Segmentation Report”, is based on a unique IT/telecommunications-centric needs and behavioral segmentation of over 1,500 US SMBs.

The four segments include:

Enterprise Adopters (Tier 1 SMBs): Solutions buyers, willing to pay premiums for scalability, QoS and SLAs

Cutting Edge Adopters (Tier 2 SMBs): Desire latest products and solutions, but not at premium prices

Value Adopters (Tier 3 SMBs): Price-point buyers, acquire mature technologies and point products

Needs Help Adopters (Tier 4 SMBs): Uncomfortable with technology, buy simple, basic communications products

“As communications service providers strive to grow average revenues per customer by adding IP-based services to their portfolio, it becomes imperative to understand the target segments and the customer-engagement model for driving that additional value,” saiys Deepinder Sahni, New York-based analyst at AMI-Partners. “Each segment has a distinct set of needs, mindsets and behaviors that guide its acquisition of communications solutions. Further, each segment is impacted uniquely by its surrounding competitive, economic and regulatory environment,” he adds.

The segmentation has practical implications ranging from market planning and strategy to organizational structure for optimizing the go-to-market (GTM) approach that service providers have in the SMB market.

Select highlights from the report suggest:

1 in 5 Tier 1 SBs, and 2 out of 5 Tier 1 MBs, are now using web conferencing.

13 percent  of Tier 1 SBs have deployed soft phones, in contrast to only 3 percent of Tier 4 SBs.

Over 1 in 5 MBs are using videoconferencing relative to 1 in 10 among Tier 4 MBs.

Over 70 percent  of the total SMB spending on managed services is driven by Tier 1 and Tier 2 SMBs.

A typical Tier 1 MB spends about 3.8X the amount a Tier 4 MB spends on telecommunications each year.

A Tier 2 SB spends about 2X the amount a Tier 3 SBs spends on telecommunications each year.