S.V. Osipov
Graduate of the MBA CIO 20B group
IT Management Schools
RANEPA under the President of the Russian Federation

Who needsIT in an SMB company?

In recent years, I have seen quite a lot of Small and Medium Business (SMB) companies. I can confidently draw a sad conclusion - insufficient attention to the company's IT infrastructure at the start translates into rather serious problems after a while - from slowdown in growth to suspension of activities.

Small and medium-sized enterprises form the backbone of the economy of any developed country... Thus, according to some estimates, the contribution of small businesses reaches half of the entire US budget. In Russia, this figure is still significantly lower, but it is steadily increasing from year to year.

At the same time, the SMB sector is gradually maturing for the introduction of new technological solutions. To succeed in a highly competitive environment, improve labor efficiency and cut costs, small businesses are willing to invest in informatization. The telecommunications infrastructure is improving in the country, broadband Internet access is developing, which also increases the demand for IT.

If the question of the need for high technologies for the business tasks of medium and, especially, large business seems to the market long ago, then the active use of information technologies by very small companies is a topic that is still not always obvious to the leaders of such companies. SMB firms are just as dependent on information technology as large organizations. In such organizations, there are much fewer IT specialists than in large corporations, so the head of the IT department must be directly involved in the development and support of the IT infrastructure, and, therefore, be highly qualified in the field of IT. It is rare that IT specialists in an SMB company are required to have significant business experience. In small firms, the IT executive is the “technology man”, and in larger organizations, the “business strategy man”.

On the part of business owners and managers, the attitude towards IT is rather ambiguous. For some, this is a fashion that must be followed only because it is modern, for others it is prestige and one of the means of increasing the value of an enterprise's assets. But there are even more of such entrepreneurs for whom information technologies represent only a headache and unjustified additional costs.

Now almost all spheres of business are quite saturated: every year thousands of new small enterprises appear, trying to compete with the existing ones. Therefore, the most advanced players in this market already receive competitive advantages at the expense of IT, and the rest are gradually coming to the realization that without investment in this area, they will soon have nothing to do on the market.

IT systems in the SMB market are a factor of survival: in their absence, even a company of five people will not be able to develop, and with the departure of any employee it will make big problems out of the blue. It is necessary to look at the role of IT in SMB more broadly, it is necessary to understand by IT not only automation of accounting, but also such means as a system of interaction with clients, e-mail, telephony and an Internet portal. Small enterprises in the SME sector are forced to instantly respond to changes in the market situation, and this is impossible without a high degree of business manageability. This certainly pushes small business leaders to innovate to solve problems.

Another common disease in small businesses is the lack of a long-term strategy. It is necessary to initially lay in the organization's development strategy strict requirements for IT systems. In most cases, small companies lack a well-established knowledge base of best practices, well-defined business processes. You should try to avoid such situations.

Of course, small and medium-sized companies strive to save money, because they spend on automation the personal money of their owner, which could be used to develop the business. Therefore, it is important for them to choose a solution that: will solve their current business problems; reasonably priced; provides the ability to seamlessly scale as your business grows. With this formulation of the question, it is reasonable to consider informatization in a complex, and not so that now we will buy some kind of server, and then we will think about a software solution.

There is even less consensus regarding the place of IT departments in the structure of the company. Many people think that this is just a service department that installs and maintains computing and specialized equipment, software and office equipment. Moreover, the only difference between an IT service and an administrative service is simply a higher level of education and an “imaginary” awareness of the self-importance of its employees. Leaders who consider themselves more progressive, on the contrary, single out information technology structures in particular, put them on the same level in importance with financial services and production, and allow the head of the IT service to develop a strategy. Although, the management often doubts whether "this geek" is really needed in the board of the company.

Whether we like it or not, information technologies not only make people talk about themselves more and more, they are becoming an integral part of the business, and most importantly, the guarantee of the efficiency of the enterprise. In turn, the IT industry is growing at a gigantic pace, and it is not easy to meet the demand for innovation from business, it is trying to form and strengthen this demand, giving rise to a lot of myths and legends. This is especially true of technologies in the field of custom software development, implementation of large software systems and consulting in the corporate sector, technologies that are most susceptible to the fickleness of "fashion" and are more subjective in assessing their quality.

SMB in Russian

What is an SMB company in Russia in terms of IT? In Russia, there is a special approach to SMB criteria. In our market, the turnover of medium-sized companies usually does not exceed $ 100 million (the western level, as already noted, reaches $ 200 million). By Russian standards, an enterprise with 15 to 100 employees is considered small. The average enterprise, in turn, employs up to 250 employees.

At the moment, many companies in their marketing policy use the number of employees as the main criterion for classification. But this criterion is extremely unobjective. It is easy to imagine two companies with the same number of employees, but with fundamentally different business processes in terms of complexity. Thus, offering these companies the same solution is simply stupid. An indicator such as the number of PCs can greatly affect the cost of the system due to higher requirements for the database, but it does not in any way characterize the requirements for the functionality of the system. The ubiquity of this characteristic is due, first of all, to clarity, which simplifies the work of the sales department. A balanced criterion for assessing a company's belonging to a particular market sector can be developed by analyzing the real requirements of small and medium-sized businesses to the functionality of an enterprise automation system. This will make it possible to determine the complexity of business processes and, on the basis of the results, clearly divide companies in accordance with market segments.

Many integrator companies classify their customers as SMB based not on their turnover, but on the basis of the size of the IT budget and the number of PCs. At the same time, individual entrepreneurs are also considered small businesses.

There is another criterion - the number of workstations to be automated, the number of financial and economic iterations (documents for which transactions for accounting or management accounting are created, the transactions themselves).

The difference in approaches in the definition makes the measurability of the segment rather difficult. The criteria for companies to belong to the SMB segment are very different - not only among Russian and Western experts, but also among foreigners.

When choosing one or another IT product, companies in the SMB sector are usually limited in budgetary funds, therefore they are much more sensitive in comparison with large corporate clients to the price / quality ratio. If we are talking about IT equipment, the SMB market consumes universal products that can be used both “at work” and “at home”. Low cost of purchasing IT products, minimal cost of ownership, simplicity and availability of service. These are all important (and often basic) selection criteria for SMB companies. However, one cannot assume that low price is the only criterion for choosing an IT product.

Over the past few years, the approach of small businesses themselves to informatization has become much more deliberate. Based on the examples of the successes and mistakes of informatization projects of their larger industry counterparts, SMB enterprises now strive to first calculate the effectiveness of implementation available means, and not "rush headlong" into the maelstrom of informatization. Now we can safely say that the assessment of the proposed systems, their comparison (in relation to this particular organization), development plans (strategy) are all quite natural actions in SMB companies. While a few years ago, automation was presented rather as an inevitable evil.

It is important for an SMB company to choose a solution that: will solve their current business problems; reasonably priced; provides the ability to seamlessly scale as your business grows. With this formulation of the question, it is reasonable to consider informatization in a complex, and not so that now we will buy some server, and then think about a software solution. This is important not only because of the cost of ownership of the solution, but also to ensure that the system can be easily scaled. For example, it can be fast connection of new servers to the network and redistribution of the increased load. Or maybe the connection of new modules of the software solution and, accordingly, the lengthening of the chain of business processes, but it is important to make sure in advance that this is feasible, does not require large investments and huge labor costs.

When working with companies from the SMB sector, many vendors also face a number of negative “features”. Many customers have systems installed that they are used to and that allow them to perform basic IT functions. And therefore, they do not yet trust the promises of increasing efficiency and are not ready to innovate. Added to this is the lack of qualified IT specialists, which is traditional for Russian regions, and despite all the positive trends, there is still a low level of informatization in regions, including expensive broadband Internet access, and simply a low business culture.

There is only one peculiarity: the business, most likely, will have to be dealt with with the real owner of the business. And this person does not understand programming languages ​​and operating systems but knows his business processes. After all, the very process of building a business management information system is nothing more than drawing up an algorithm for a business process and translating it into a program or a set of programs.

In large companies, between the creators of software and its future users, there is an army of specialists who iteratively translate real business technologies into algorithms as they understand and explain to programmers how the program should work. And then these same specialists convince the user that he must learn to use the software that was made for him, even if it is inconvenient, takes more time and requires more staff. Well, in big business this happens almost always, costs will be smeared along a long intermediate chain, the cost of goods, tariffs, etc. will increase. And the main bosses (owners) will still see the reporting and will be able to keep records.

But in working with a small business, this number rarely passes: there is no chain, and in most cases the owner will buy only what will really help him in his work. And since he understands and knows his business processes, it is easier for him to find an option for using software than an army of consultants.

The changes that have taken place in the business world in recent decades have been characterized by a constant intensification of competition. The desire of companies to survive and succeed in the new conditions leads to purposeful attempts to use modern information technologies to gain a long-term competitive advantage. In the global information community, where information is transmitted through cyberspace with virtually no restrictions on volume, distance and speed, companies are increasingly dependent on the information they use and the systems that provide this information.

Most small and medium-sized businesses in Russia are not yet ready for complex projects to automate business processes. This primarily concerns the use of management software. Small businesses often prefer to automate only accounting and product accounting. Meanwhile, patchwork automation means the need to integrate a large number of local programs. And this entails many negative consequences: the terms and cost of performing work on the project increase, the speed of the resulting system decreases, the costs of the enterprise for maintaining the resulting system in a working condition increase significantly. This situation is unacceptable for an enterprise with a small budget.

At the same time, the Russian SME sector demonstrates sustainable financial development and becomes more and more attractive for large players in the IT market. They build a strategy for promoting services, work out in detail the mechanisms for selling products for small and medium-sized businesses. The developers intend to provide themselves with competitive advantages at the expense of new budget solutions.

However, one should not create illusions that the implementation of an IT system will instantly solve all problems. IT is only a tool that provides the ability to quickly receive reporting, financial and management information, which allows, based on a comprehensive analysis of the situation, to take correct decisions... The concept of "automation strategy" is based on basic principles, including: goals (identification of areas of the enterprise and their subsequent automation); method of automation (by departments, directions or complex automation); IT strategy (implementation of a set of internal standards); restrictions on integration (financial, time, personnel, etc.); change management planning; support and maintenance of IT applications.

In this article, I deliberately did not consider specific solutions to the problems raised and suggest using any software. This is beyond the scope of this article. Of course, in order for all systems to work like clockwork, quality service is needed. The problem of choosing between full-time IT employees and outsourcing is worthy of a separate (and more than one) article. It might be worth resorting to a SaaS implementation option. Objectively, this difficult issue should be resolved by the head of the organization based on the advice of consultants and his understanding of the business vision. For each case, it is necessary to select individual solutions. My main goal is to show that effective use of IT technologies from the very beginning of business development is one of the factors for successful development. With proper implementation and further use, IT systems help to reduce costs, and therefore increase profits.

The two main internal factors stimulating an increase in the IT costs of SMBs remain unchanged during recent years... It is a drive to improve efficiency and reduce costs. In addition, representatives of SMB companies themselves increasingly need quick access to information in order to speed up the decision-making process.

Effective use information systems implies the implementation of IT systems in all areas of the company. Of course, this is very difficult and expensive. But, on the other hand, this approach lays the foundation for the further successful development of the company. The organization has clearly structured business processes, the company is less dependent on its employees. There is a possibility of further growth of the IT system in parallel with the business.

Many companies have already learned from their own experience that information technologies, by themselves, do not provide the expected benefits from their use. However, technology is not to blame for this, since, despite the rapid change in their technical parameters(speed, volume, cost, etc.) not only determine the end result of their application, but also how companies understand the role of IT systems in business, as well as how they manage their implementation and use.

IT service of the enterprise

What are the specifics of small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) from the point of view of IT market participants? Is this segment as attractive as it might seem from the news feeds, which contain many special offers for SMB? These and other questions weekly columnist Computerworld Russia discusses with the head of the IDC office in Russia and the CIS countries Robert Farish. It turns out that Russia has its own peculiarities here too - the volume of the middle segment is very small in relation to the total volume of the market. But it is in this segment that those “growth points” are located that attract attention to it. It is difficult to "bring small clients to a common denominator", SMB is multifaceted, the industry characteristics of each enterprise are of great importance. However, it was previously believed that the IT needs of this category of customers are extremely primitive and, as a rule, they can be satisfied with the most economical models of equipment and the cheapest software tools. Is it really?

Are SMB companies the same thrifty clients as "state employees"?

It is difficult to talk about the segment as a whole, the companies are very different. If they belong to a rich, fast-growing sector of the market, they are willing to pay for serious equipment, even though the companies themselves are still small. Insurance or travel company, for example, documents in in electronic format help speed up the sales process.

And if there are competitors who follow this path ...

Of course, this also affects. If there is money in the sector, you will get one SMB client profile, if not, it will be dealt with by other suppliers - PCs, printers, that is, products that everyone needs.

Are these customers looking for more savings when buying hardware than corporate customers?

Yes, sure. Corporate customers have more resources to competently create an IT infrastructure. And SMB tries to save money on every purchase: the owner spends his own money himself.

So the generalized hardware offer for SMB is the entry-level model?

In Russia, the structure of the market for many products, such as printers, copiers, resembles an hourglass. There are a fair number of companies buying expensive equipment, and a lot of those buying entry-level equipment. And in the middle there is very low demand: there are few medium-sized companies and they are extremely price sensitive. According to government statistics, there are far more large companies in Russia than medium-sized ones, and far fewer small companies than in other countries. This makes it very different from Central and of Eastern Europe where the "pyramid" is more balanced.

Over the past few years, almost all Western vendors have begun to turn towards the SMB market, and now the same trend is emerging in Russia. But they have where to turn, and we, it turns out, not very ...

In the PC and peripheral market, the enterprise segment is saturated, so any vendor looking to boost sales should focus on SMB. This does not apply to servers yet.

It turns out that in other segments there is no objective need for this, just the policy of the head office is broadcast to all markets?

In this regard, the example of SAP is interesting, where they decided to try to enter the SMB segment with a completely new ERP product all over the world. As for the computer market, all Western vendors understand that after a while they will be able to increase their share in the Russian market, so they are closely monitoring the segment that can provide them with growth in the future. And it's called SMB.

The growth of the Russian IT market is based on the budgets of government agencies and large companies, and the consumer market is also developing rapidly. We haven't heard much about growth in the middle segment yet ...

If you include companies with fewer than 500 employees, it includes a portion of the growing telecommunications market, discrete and continuous manufacturing, and retail.

Logic dictates that sooner or later, growth will also begin here, because the number of enterprises in the corporate segment is stable and in terms of demand for IT infrastructure products, this segment is almost saturated.

While there is no real demand in the middle segment, the IT market continues to consolidate, forming holdings so that it is more convenient to serve large customers ...

It's not easy for a medium-sized company in Russia. Large enterprises have an edge in the marketplace, while bureaucratic and political issues are more damaging to midsize companies.

Today it is clear who is concentrating in the consumer and corporate segment. What is currently lacking in the market are companies that specialize in supporting small and medium-sized businesses. This is not a very simple market, the level of profitability in it, of course, is less than in the corporate segment. Because you have to deal with customers who have never paid for services or even software before. But the potential, of course, is there.

That is, when IT holdings gain muscle and finally focus on large customers, will there be room for those who will serve SMB?

A very interesting question about the further strategy of large integrators who have created a business for the delivery of "hardware" and its support. They must take a serious look at their business models, assessing whether they can provide services to small companies. If they don't, a new generation of companies will grow up to take over this segment.

It seems that everyone who now has a good share in this segment is trying to break through "up", and those who are already there are trying to try their luck "below."

Indeed, every company must have a development strategy, show that it can do more than it does. Among Western companies, Microsoft has taken the most advantageous positions in this segment of the Russian IT market, gradually improving its offerings for the corporate segment. But in the IT market it has always been difficult to sell equipment in both segments, the leaders, as a rule, specialized in either one or the other.

And now everyone is trying to satisfy both those and these ...

Yes, everyone is trying, but I think this is a very difficult task. The structure of the company must change, the structure of the sales channel, the products - everything is different. For example, IBM used to play in this segment, but now it has retained corporate and medium-sized businesses. Maybe HP managed to do this, since it has a very wide range of offerings, it really has weight in both segments, but this is a very difficult task. And it may even be unprofitable.

Business reorientation requires additional investment. It is one thing to support two or three large clients, and quite another to deal with many small ...

Again, depending on what is referred to as SMB. A manufacturing plant is also SMB if it's a small plant, but if it makes parts for Ford, it needs a complex information system. There are now quite a few insurance companies that need basic solutions. The example of banks is also interesting: if each of their divisions has its own budget, then they behave like a small business, although they are part of a large organization.

But does it make sense for one IT company to try to satisfy both large and small customers if their needs are very different?

This is an important point. I think in the future, all proposals for the SMB segment should be more clearly oriented towards a specific industry - for example, a solution for a small production or a small insurance company. 1C and Microsoft already have such solutions - industry-specific. SMB is a very vague concept, you cannot find general words that would be true for all companies operating in this market.

So, when analyzing this segment, you should break it down at least by industry as well?

Is the share of the SMB sector decreasing due to the fact that there is intensive growth “from above” and “from below”?

Not necessary. Small businesses have the potential to become medium-sized or so profitable that they become interested in products for medium-sized businesses. There are distribution companies with huge incomes, which employ only ten people. They require a rather complex control system.

Where are we going to come? Suppliers create special structures to work with this segment, spend money ... and as a result, turn in the direction of the "hole"?

There are "S", of which we have quite a lot, and "M" - there are few of them. If the product is designed for medium-sized businesses, it is especially important to determine whether there is a demand for it in Russia. As the market matures, other types of products, disk arrays, servers, and more sophisticated services will be sold in this segment. In the meantime, it is necessary to determine in which industry the growth is expected, the same development of the entire economy will not be.

What are the most promising segments today?

All types of business serving the oil and gas industry, professional services, some types of production (furniture, food), trade, insurance and financial services are now actively developing.

What are the main trends in the development of IT business in the SMB sector can affect the picture of tomorrow?

Previously, this sector was extremely price sensitive, which had a 99% influence on decision making. It matures over time and very cheap products will become more difficult to sell here. Earlier most cheap model in the line was also the most popular, now it is no longer a fact. Looking at the structure of the laptop or printer markets, low-end models are no longer in demand as they used to be.

The second trend is that growth in this sector will not be even in terms of geography or industry. Some segments will grow at a very fast pace, while in others demand will not change over time. The bulk of small businesses today operate in retail, but very few will soon need IT.

Does it take time for them to grow up?

We need an environment, an opportunity to develop without the pressure of tax authorities, municipal authorities and bureaucracy. In my personal opinion, it is still difficult to be a free businessman in Russia.

The spool is small ...

According to IDC research, the share of the SMB sector in the Russian IT market does not exceed 27%, while large business takes 38%. If we consider the segments of small and medium-sized businesses separately, their share lags behind both government agencies and home users.

Small and medium-sized businesses do not have the time required to deploy IT solutions and create qualified support and maintenance services. And for them the way out of the situation is in the active use of external resources.

For more than a quarter of a century, business circles have been discussing the real value of information technology, but no one disputes that the means of processing and presenting information have become a part of our life and are used by enterprises and organizations of all sizes and forms of ownership.

A feature of recent years is the growing interest in increasingly serious IT solutions on the part of small and medium-sized businesses. The SMB sector as a whole is reasonably conservative and only invests in things that show real returns. On the other hand, heads of companies in this sector are looking with interest for ways of development that have not yet become traditional in our country and allow creating competitive advantages in new market niches of the market.

Important factors for success

Enterprises in the SMB sector have a number of "ideological" characteristics. One of them is the search for optimality, and from a variety of points of view. First of all, the optimality of the very way of organizing a business and the components of business processes. Small business leaders are no longer satisfied with the fact that they receive important management information about the state of warehouses, orders and corporate finances from the "electronic plate" with the accompanying "reliability" and "promptness of updating" data. More and more leaders in the SMB sector not only use information technologies in accounting and automation of basic and auxiliary business processes, but also see them as an important analytical tool for company management, and sometimes as a center for the accumulation of corporate knowledge and innovation.

Another feature is the close attention to quality. There are a large number of sellers here, so the buyer has freedom of choice and will not tolerate low-quality solutions. The costs of low-quality and suboptimal implementation, support and maintenance of the IT complex in aggregate, taking into account the cost of the involved personnel and internal losses of working time, can be up to 5-10% of the company's turnover. Some CFOs say that only internal losses in work associated with additional reconciliation of data after IT systems, a lot of approvals required for the development of new reports and, as a result, management decisions based on approximate data lead to losses of 3-5% of total turnover. companies.

Poor operation of IT systems, the costs of their support and maintenance, included in the constant operating costs, become that small leak, which, as you know, can sink a large ship or prevent it from going ahead faster than competitors. At a time when large companies can experiment with information technologies, having a certain "margin of safety" (established business processes, established factors of competition, etc.), the average business has virtually no room for error when using IT systems.

Pros and cons of outsourcing

As is often the case, in difficult situations, simple, proven solutions help. The ideas of IT outsourcing, which have been so actively discussed for several years, are beginning to find application in the small and medium-sized business sector. The very idea of ​​outsourcing, which consists in transferring non-core functions to organizations specializing in them, is not new and goes back to the era of transition from a subsistence economy to a commodity one. But the IT outsourcing market, especially in relation to the SMB segment, is still being created.

Having grown over the past ten to fifteen years a galaxy of world-famous creators of IT systems, Russia has largely lost the culture of high-quality support, maintenance and development of systems that it had in previous years in aviation, space and a number of other areas. Meanwhile, the realities of life require not only ensuring reliable operation, but also the dynamic development of IT systems.

Why is this market in Russia still small? The IT outsourcing market in Russia has not yet formed, the offer of IT services, in addition to design work for the implementation of new systems, is currently limited to the technological sphere - support of servers and individual components of the ICT infrastructure. Telecommunications operators have come closest to the concept of service, but it is not an easy task for a customer from the SMB sector to get a contract with the parameters of the quality of the data transmission network and support for the site.

However, you can be sure that the situation in the field of IT outsourcing for small and medium-sized businesses will change dramatically in the near future. Professional players enter the emerging market, creating freedom of choice and competition for the buyer.

Service integration

What are business-oriented, quality and optimal IT services? The exact answer to this question is possible only within each separate industry, and in each of the industries, a class of specialized service companies will be formed (or rather, is already being formed).

The peculiarity of the state of affairs in SMB lies in the fact that small and medium-sized businesses do not have the time margin required to deploy IT solutions and create qualified support and maintenance services for them. And for them the way out is in the active use of external resources. It is important for these companies to solve two problems. The first is to quickly deploy a new IT solution. The second is to constantly ensure its high-quality work. If the solution of the first problem is the lot of system integrators, then in the second case the problem of service integration should be solved, when the IT services for the user should be "assembled" from the resources of external and internal service providers and a mechanism should be created to ensure their guaranteed provision in accordance with service level agreements (SLAs). This can be done based on the ITIL / ITSM approach to organizing IT management in general and IT business processes. It is absolutely unrealistic to have all the "bricks" in your IT department for a company from the SMB sector, but this does not mean that there cannot be standard "bricks".

In addition to the obvious support services for applications and infrastructure components that solution providers usually provide, there can be identified typical IT services that are common to all organizations and have a certain focus on solving the end user problem. This is support of workplaces, ensuring the functioning of office printing facilities and corporate storage of information, ensuring the operation of e-mail and a website. In fact, this service can be called an "IT office", at one level or another it is common for all companies. And the more external services of high quality appear at an affordable price, the more often customers resort to them.

Of course, typical functions should be transferred to organizations specializing in their implementation, but this must be done deliberately, to a certain extent and subject to certain conditions.

Key outsourcing success factors

Let's highlight the factors that you need to pay attention to when switching to outsourcing.

Right choice outsourcing facility. It is necessary to determine what IT services are planned to be outsourced and what task is being solved. Common sense and world practice show that they do not outsource the maintenance of critical applications and the solution of atypical, unique tasks for a given organization. At the same time, when transferring to outsourcing of typical tasks, significant savings can be achieved. In short, all typical non-critical IT activities may well be potential outsourcing targets, provided the following condition is met.

Availability enough service providers. Objectively speaking, there are still few external service providers who are ready to bear responsibility according to the quality indicators entered into the contract and who have proven experience in providing them. But it can be assumed that the situation will change rapidly as the SMB sector develops and the demand for such services grows. From a technological and managerial point of view, this is not a difficult task. Provided that experienced IT management consultants are involved, an IT service provider may well prepare itself to provide high-quality standard IT services within a few months.

The presence of clear operational management within the service provider itself. The term widely used in business has already become familiar - a professional team of managers. We often come across the words in the press: "The owners of the enterprise invited a team of managers to manage the plant." Ownership and management are separate in many companies, and more and more professionals are being recruited for the second task. In any case, it is clear that governance is a separate task. We can safely say that the problems of many service providers are precisely the lack of structured end-to-end, or process, management within the departments directly involved in the provision of IT services. And the stumbling block is not the lack of specialists in certain areas of knowledge, there are enough of them even in the regions, but the fact that the heads of the operational level do not have sufficient training in organizing the interaction of expert groups and specialists with each other.

Without assessing the real ability of a potential supplier to provide services, which is largely characterized by the quality of internal management, the buyer of IT outsourcing runs a high risk, since almost never the contract does not include coverage of indirect losses in case of its violation. A sufficiently reliable guarantee to the buyer can be the availability of the audit results of the service provider for the compliance of the management level with internationally recognized standards. It is important to note that ISO 9000 certification is not enough yet, as it confirms the existence of a general quality control system, but not the existence of certain critical IT management processes. These processes are defined in the ITIL library, enshrined in the ISO 20000 standard and - in an expanded form - in the COBIT IT audit standard. It is the management audit based on these standards that makes it possible to obtain the best answer from the point of view of world practice about the level of management processes in the outsourcing company itself and to confirm the feasibility of achieving the parameters of the quality of IT services declared in the contract.

The already mentioned service level agreement. Absolutely necessary condition successful outsourcing is the inclusion in the contract of the main parameters of the services provided. The agreement should not be limited to aggregate parameters such as overall system reliability of 99.9% per month, as even one multi-hour failure that does not violate the total monthly statistics can be business critical.

The SLA parameters should be based on business requirements, and the better they align with those requirements, the better the agreement is. In this sense, the agreement may include non-standard parameters, which, in turn, may cause an increase in price, but nevertheless be justified, since it is beneficial for the business.

Economic considerations. In fact, only a few organizations have even approximated, with some degree of approximation, how much internal provision costs them. standard services... This is especially important for small and medium-sized businesses, where quantitative parameters of economic efficiency are very important as opposed to qualitative ones. It is necessary to take into account the remuneration of personnel and the corresponding taxes, the cost office space and office services, wasted time on training, vacations, etc. Add to this the costs of training, staff reservations in critical areas and the cost of management, you get an impressive amount.

One cannot ignore the fact that, due to the limited staffing, small and medium-sized businesses experience an even more palpable shortage of mid-level IT executives than large organizations. It is not uncommon for an IT department to have only one experienced manager; in such conditions, even a customer support service becomes a serious problem. If the CIO starts to deal with operational issues himself, he will not have time for IT development and many other tasks. And the losses from this can be quite significant.

Thus, companies in the Russian SMB market need high-quality processing of internal information about the effectiveness of their work in order to make management decisions. This means that soon we will observe a new stage in the development of modular IT solutions and IT services for small and medium-sized businesses.

Mikhail Pototsky is a managing partner of IT Expert, which specializes in the provision of consulting services and services, as well as training programs in the field of IT management. He can be contacted by email at [email protected].

SLA - Typical Agreement Parameters

Service level agreement (SLA) parameters should be based on business requirements, and the better they align with those requirements, the better the agreement is. In this sense, the agreement may include non-standard parameters, which, in turn, may cause an increase in price, but nevertheless be justified, since it is beneficial for the business.

Performance and load parameters:

• the speed of processing one transaction (or message) or the speed of the system's response;
• the number of processed transactions (or messages) per unit of time;
• maximum volume of one transaction (or message), etc.

Support options:

• average or maximum response time;
• average or maximum recovery time;
• in some cases, the number of failures per unit of time, etc.

Common parameters:

• time required to connect new users (service deployment);
• maximum number of users;
• the percentage of fulfillment of the indicators under this agreement (in practice, it may not be equal to 100%, but it should not be lower than 90-95%), etc.

Who works for the SMB market?

Operators of all stripes, sizes and technologies. What unites them, perhaps, is one thing - a natural desire to expand their presence in the SMB field. How to work for business middle hand and how much to earn on it?

We were ready to tell our colleagues and clients about this:

L. GUSHTUROV, Commercial Director of Comstar-UTS;
D. YAKOVLEV, Head of the Directorate for Sales of Services to Existing Clients of SCS Sovintel (Golden Telecom);
O. TAYNOV, Deputy General Director for Commerce, Prestige-Internet (Enforta);
S. Pekhterev, CEO of Settelecom;
K. KUCHEROV, Corporate Sales Director, Tele2 Russia;
S. KANAPIN, executive director of IPNet;
S. LAGIR, General Director of Severen-Telecom;
I. SHMELEV, director of strategic planning"Infonets";
O. KIRILLOV, director of the company "Econ Technologies";
N. MISTYUKOVA, Partner Relations Manager, Avaya SMB Solutions;
A. KARABUTOV, systems engineer "YuAFI-T".

"IKS": Most of the participants in the discussion on the question of the ratio of large and SMB-clients in customer base their companies and the share of income that this category of users provides them remained within the framework of the Pareto law: 80% of clients from small and medium-sized businesses generate 20% of revenues. Representatives of Comstar-UTS, Golden Telecom and Prestige-Internet have a dissenting opinion.

L.Gushthatmoat: The client base of Comstar-UTS is rather specific, since the company is formed of several operators. Today, I would estimate the ratio in our database of large and SMB clients as 1:10, i.e. for one large client we have 10 clients from the SMB segment and individuals.
D. Yakovlev: The ratio of contracts between large and SMB clients of Golden Telecom in Moscow is 50:50. In terms of revenues, this ratio is different - 13: 1, which is explained by the prevalence of large, highly profitable subscribers. In regions where SMB clients and individuals prevail in our database, according to my estimates, it is less, probably 5: 1.
O. Tainov: We initially positioned ourselves as an operator for small and medium-sized businesses. I would describe the ratio of SME (Small Medium Enterprise) and SOHO (Small Office Home Office) segments in our customer base as 20:80. At the same time, the first segment provides us with a third of our income, and the second two-thirds.
K. Kucherov: Tele2's strategy in the market is to provide simple and inexpensive services. Obviously, this approach is attractive primarily for small and medium-sized businesses. Moreover, it is precisely this segment that our corporate program is aimed at. Hence the predominance of SMB companies in the list of our clients.

IKS: What is the specifics of a telecom operator's work in the SMB segment?

D. Yakovlev: Small and medium business is a fairly conservative segment. For the most part, SMB companies put service reliability first and price / quality ratio second. Probably, this is not the segment from which to start introducing technological innovations. However, we position ourselves as a conductor of knowledge for small and medium-sized companies, conduct seminars - in a word, we are actively working to improve the technological literacy of SMB clients.
L. Gushturov: Working with small companies is more extensive and requires more labor, but we try to comply with the quality standards adopted for large customers. Of course, it is very difficult to provide an individual approach to SMB companies when their mass becomes critical, but this must be strived for. At the very least, our willingness to help in solving communication problems, the availability of technical and commercial support, claims service, invoicing and delivery of invoices are the same for large and small customers.
O. Tainov: As a rule, SMB companies do not consider the purchase of telecommunications services to be a priority. Therefore, it is important for them to offer a simple solution that is understandable both from the point of view of the services included in it, and from the point of view of the contract, and from the point of view of payment, connection and operation. This solution should be convenient for people who do not know what DNS and IP address are.
S. Pekhterev: Clients from the SMB segment, of course, are faster than large ones - they make decisions faster. We have to match their speed, but this is not a problem for us. In small and medium-sized businesses, people know exactly what they want, they count their money. By the way, they themselves are often asked to do some work in order to reduce costs ...
K. Kucherov: The main specificity is that it is necessary to provide services high class a large number of clients. This requires a smart mix of enterprise and queuing technologies. Of course, entering this market required Tele2 to make changes to organizational structure and changes and additions to a number of business processes.
I. Shmelev: The specificity of SMB enterprises is that they are growing. Such companies often change offices. In these conditions, it is possible to keep the usual telecommunication services for them unchanged only with the help of wireless technology.
N. Mistyukova: Avaya works with end users through its partners, many of whom are SMB companies themselves. They have to communicate with business-oriented buyers who are not always tech-savvy. In these conditions, solution sellers act as consultants and delve into the customer's business. After all, a project becomes successful when the customer clearly understands how exactly he will be able to organize communications in his company and what benefits the implementation of this solution promises to him. That's why completed project usually goes far beyond the task set at the beginning.

IKS: How much is an SMB client willing to spend monthly on communication services?

O. Tainov: Our average ARPU from Internet and telephony services is about $ 180, i.e. 1% of the turnover is a fairly typical volume of monthly expenses of SMB-clients for fixed-line services. However, in such companies, employees often work outside the office and need to provide for the costs of cellular communications. So, in general, small and medium-sized businesses spend about 2% of their turnover on fixed and mobile communications.
S. Pekhterev: In our opinion, 1% of the turnover is quite an acceptable figure, in monetary terms the SMB client agrees to pay from 20 thousand rubles, this amount also includes the payment for the Internet - from 5 thousand rubles.
S. Kanapin: Costs of a couple of hundred thousand rubles as a one-time payment and several thousand rubles as a monthly fee do not frighten such customers. As a result, they get high-quality digital communication.
S. Lagir: From $ 50 to $ 1500.
O. Kirillov: No more than 5-15 thousand rubles. from each remote office and 50-80 thousand rubles. for the services provided to the central office.

IKS: What communication services are priority for small and medium-sized businesses and what can be offered to them as additional ones?

L. Gushturov: A conversation with an SMB company usually starts with a telephony service. The choice of a technical solution for the method of access to our network depends on the scope of the customer's needs. Small businesses are content with an ADSL solution. Moreover, if he has several points, he is interested in the services of combining them into a single network (IP-Centrex for telephony and VPN for data transmission). For medium-sized companies, we offer the organization of a fiber-optic access line to our network. VPN service may be in demand by small banks, pharmacy chains or ticket kiosks. All of them today want to use common information resources at all their points of sale.

Many additional services can be strung on these services. These include the LogicLine product line (intelligent platform services), which is highly demanded by our SMB clients; free call for customers to 800 numbers, data backup, data storage, co-location at our facilities, postal services, billing outsourcing, etc., depending on the individual needs of the client.

In general, the process of recruiting additional services by clients is very individual, and sometimes even exotic. For example, not so long ago, a well-known retail chain became a consumer of our audio conferencing services, and in a large volume.

D. Yakovlev: Small and medium-sized companies tend to focus on one task. It is solved by a network of pharmacies in residential areas, small shops, bakeries, travel agencies. For them, the main services are the telephone in the office and the Internet, and it is very important high degree the readiness of these services.

As a subset of telephony services, I would single out 800 numbers, a service that, thanks to the joint efforts of our company, Rostelecom and MTT, has become quite popular with SMB companies today. We have a special solution for this service based on a call center, which allows us to make available to SMB clients the services that our large clients have been using for a long time.

O. Tainov: The priority for the customers of this segment is a complete solution for doing business through a global network, which includes all applications necessary for small and medium-sized businesses: e-mail, anti-spam, antivirus, round-the-clock support. They are in great demand for the services of creating a website for the company and its support. Since the budget for SMB companies, especially in the regions, is limited, they should be able to control and manage their communication costs through a friendly interface. The second thing without which business is unthinkable is telephony. Turnkey solutions are also popular here. For example, we give our customers the choice between a voice gateway or an Avaya digital phone.
S. Pekhterev: Telephony, mobile communications for executives and field managers, and Internet with e-mail in the office are all small and medium-sized businesses need.
O. Kirillov: First of all, they are in demand for telephony, and secondly, for data transmission. I would classify the provision of SLA and information security as optional services.
N. Mistyukova: There are three levels of development of the needs of small and medium-sized businesses in the functions of office telephone platforms. At the first stage, voice mail, voice menu, the ability to work with a mobile phone (PBX mode - Mobile Twinning) are usually used. On the second, most often the task of connecting remote employees arises, and also there is a need to organize priority reception of calls from VIP clients. The third stage marks the construction of a call-center and an automatic self-service system (issuing information from the database by phone without operators - automatically).

"IKS": What technologies and / or their combinations have already been proven economic efficiency in the SMB segment?

D. Yakovlev: IP VPN, Internet Tunneling, Wireless Access.
O. Tainov: Wireless access technology - its development is not constrained by the availability of terrestrial infrastructure. And for a small company in the region, which already has one telephone line and cannot get another one from the GTS, wireless technologies are actually the only available solution.
S. Pekhterev: VSAT technologies are extremely effective for SMB companies outside major cities(timber industry enterprises, road workers, agricultural enterprises, small factories, etc.). Efficiency is achieved due to the low price of the "entrance ticket", the ability to quickly organize the connection, flexible tariff policy, high quality service ...
I. Shmelev: We can definitely say that wireless technologies are the best solution for the SMB sector. Fast connection of services, safety of services when moving and quality of software affordable price are undoubtedly very attractive for developing companies.
S. Kanapin: I think VSAT and ADSL are probably all the technologies that such a customer is seriously considering. Wi-Fi, WiMAX, FOCL, RRL in most cases are either ineffective from an economic point of view, or do not correspond to the declared quality.
S. Lagir: Local IP telephony.
A. Karabutov: Unified information systems with the deployment of both common information resources and media services of classical and multimedia telephony are enjoying indisputable success among SMB companies.

IKS: The opinions of the participants in the discussion about the prospect of triple play services for SMB were divided. Some believe that these companies can find all the content they need, including video, on the Internet (O. Tainov), others are convinced that services based on video, voice and data transmission have prospects if they are easy to use and understandable to consumers (I. Shmelev).

D. Yakovlev: For medium and small businesses, a truncated quadruple play is of interest: fixed telephony + mobile communications + Internet access. We have certain developments: the FMC service, implemented by us in cooperation with VimpelCom, allows clients with mobile phone call at an attractive rate to the office or to the internal extention of a PBX that does not have a direct telephone number.
O. Tainov: I agree that in the future, mobility can become the third link that can complement the Internet and telephony for the SMB segment. However, our experience shows that FMC is not in demand by small and medium-sized enterprises: they consume fixed and mobile services from different operators.
A. Karabutov: In the future, triple play solutions will be included in daily life of people. Video for corporate clients will be used in telephony solutions and interactive multimedia applications. After all, with the help of a videophone you can speak much more efficiently than through standard audio communication.
L. Gushturov: The service of delivery of TV content is already in demand today by such a category of legal entities as bars, restaurants, hotels. They want to broadcast TV channels to their visitors. But the situation on this market is far from ideal: the package of programs that can be broadcast in such establishments is simply microscopic. Sistema's companies are now actively negotiating with the majors. I think that at the beginning of 2008 we will be able to offer legal entities a legitimate package of TV channels for a reasonable price. There are also technical aspects. Today we see the need to increase the speed of access when implementing triple play services, including for corporate STREAM users. To this end, the MGTS network will be modernized in certain directions where the largest volume of traffic is generated.

IKS: To what extent are outsourcing services in demand by the SMB business?

S. Pekhterev: I'll be honest: “I don’t believe !!!”. Firstly, outsourcing presupposes that the company has plans for at least six months in advance, and the business of small and medium-sized enterprises is very dynamic. Sometimes the problem that has arisen before them today needs to be solved in a week. For outsourcing, such a dynamically changing load is very unprofitable. In addition, in SMB companies, a subjective factor has a strong influence on decision-making: the opinion of their owner or manager - “like it, don't like it”, “trust it, don't trust it”. It should be borne in mind that not all enterprises in this sector are transparent, so their top officials are not always ready to let a “stranger” into their computer.
L. Gushturov: As an economic trend, outsourcing will win, because a professional in a narrow field will always do the job better and in most cases cheaper. However, it is still difficult to understand what exactly SMEs can outsource to the operator. Perhaps the subject of outsourcing for them can be equipment, services for its maintenance, adjustment.
D. Yakovlev: In Russia today there is not a sufficient number of professional outsourcers who are ready to work with the SMB segment. For small and medium-sized businesses, outsourcing should be done by companies from the same segment. And there are still few of them.
O. Tainov: Small and medium businesses respond very well to the turnkey service offer. All of them need basic training, help in setting up computers, creating and maintaining a local network, defining routing rules for a PBX. In our experience, many medium and especially small companies in the regions are seriously interested in outsourcing their entire IT infrastructure, right down to PCs.
I. Shmelev: Soon it will be possible to assemble the company as a constructor, transferring all the necessary functions to third-party companies. This is a global trend, and in the near future we will come to the conclusion that the center of the company will be business ideas and the people who work in it, everything else is outsourcing.
S. Kanapin: The penetration of outsourcing into the SMB segment is still very small. "The main limiting factor is the psychological unwillingness of the customer to completely outsource a number of functions. In addition, you need to take into account the economy: it is often unprofitable for small and medium-sized companies to outsource processes due to their small volumes.

IKS: What are your plans for the SMB market?

L. Gushturov: Comstar-UTS has very ambitious plans for the small and medium-sized business segment. We intend to further expand the geography of our coverage - to enter regional markets. The concentration of large clients in regional markets is less than in Moscow, so we will pay even more attention to SMB. And a very attractive sector remains in the Moscow region - the Moscow region market. There are plans to increase its market share of broadband clients in general and SMB clients in particular to 50%, although it is clear that solving this problem will take more than one year.
D. Yakovlev: We have the most extensive plans. First of all, we actively offer our clients the services of the federal transit network, numbers 8-800, Wi-Fi. In the near future we will start working as an agent for VimpelCom, offering mobile services on its behalf. We also plan to provide additional services such as virtual serial number, call forwarding, simultaneous calls to mobile and landline phones, voice mail, etc., as well as expanding the network topology.
O. Tainov: We are hatching plans for geographic expansion - in next year to increase from 25 to 65 the number of Russian cities in which small and medium-sized businesses have access to services under the Enforta brand. We want to be present not only in million-plus cities, but also to cover cities with a population of more than 250 thousand. We look towards the regional market of triple play services for individuals, and towards mobility: we, as the leader of wireless access, cannot leave mobile WiMAX technology unattended ...
K. Kucherov: At the moment, Tele2 Russia is consistently launching a single corporate program in all regions of its presence. The company will then focus on optimizing its product portfolio for business customers.
S. Pekhterev: Now the main thing for us is the popularization of VSAT technologies. So far, little is known about them in SMB companies, so we try to inform the market about their capabilities, and at the same time about our existence, for example, by answering questions from IKS.