Sixty-six percent of SMBs said cloud-based services are very important to their business, while 57 percent already take advantage of cloud-based services, said an Amdocs survey.
44 percent of those who are not yet using cloud-based services are actively considering, the survey said.
Most consumed services are for storage and backup (72 percent), computer networks (48 percent) and office software (41 percent).
The SMB research surveyed 1,311 SMB decision makers from North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific.
The Amdocs survey does not talk about challenges or issues faced by SMBs when they go for cloud deployments. It also does not mention about demands of SMBs.
SMBs engage with three different vendors on average for their cloud-based services requirements.
45 percent companies get cloud-based services from their primary service provider.
74 percent prefer to receive cloud-based services from their primary service provider.
41 percent believe they can get better deals from independent cloud vendors.
32 percent did not ask for or receive information about cloud-based offerings from their primary service provider.
31 percent do not believe their primary service provider even offers cloud-based services.
Sixty-eight percent are more likely to select a service provider that offers cloud-based services over one that does not.
44 percent will switch from third-party cloud services providers to their primary communications services providers if offered bundles of traditional and cloud services.
80 percent want to receive one bill for all the communication services they consume.
“To be able to capitalize on the SMB cloud-based services opportunity, communications service providers must have a convergent BSS and OSS systems environment that can cost-efficiently support both cloud-based and traditional services,” said Rebecca Prudhomme, vice president of product and solutions marketing for Amdocs.