SkyKick: SMB Cloud Shift Begins with Office 365

June 3, 2016

A report has uncovered that while many businesses are using Office 365, they are still the minority—providing a major opportunity for IT solution providers in a growing cloud market. SkyKick analyzed cloud adoption for thousands of U.S. small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs)—companies with less than 250 employees—to come to its conclusions around the state of Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud offering.

“SkyKick’s State of the Office 365 SMB Cloud research shows the shift to cloud is definitely underway and there’s a big opportunity ahead for the industry,” said SkyKick co-CEO Todd Schwartz. “For many businesses the shift to the cloud begins with Office 365, so we’re providing Office 365 adoption insights to help partners focus on capturing their piece of the projected $500 billion cloud market. Our goal with this research is the same as our products and mission—to help IT solution providers be more successful in the cloud.”

Among its findings, SkyKick determined:

• Massive Office 365 Cloud Opportunity: 7.5 percent of U.S. SMBs are using Office 365, signaling a huge opportunity remains for IT solution providers.
• Go-to-Market Strategy Insights: With cloud competition heating up, SkyKick’s data provides IT solution providers with valuable go-to-market strategy insights based on adoption by state, industry vertical and business size.
  • Geography: The highest percentage of SMBs using Office 365 are in:
    1. Washington state (10.1 percent)
    2. Oregon (9.4 percent)
    3. Wisconsin (9.4 percent)
  • Industry: The industries with the highest percentage of SMBs using Office 365 are:
    1. Industrial (coal mining 30.6 percent, pipelines 22.7 percent, railroad transportation 21.6 percent)
    2. Tech-focused business services (computer facilities management 21.3 percent, holdings and investment offices 19.9 percent, computer integrated systems design 17.8 percent)
    3. White collar business services (consulting services 14.1 percent, insurance carriers 13.5 percent, security & commodity brokers 13.4 percent)
  • Business Size: As the size of the business increases, the higher likelihood to adopt Office 365.
    • 16.6 percent of businesses between 51 and 250 employees use Office 365 versus the average of  7.5 percent across all SMBs
    • Businesses that have more than 10 employees have more than double the Office 365 adoption of businesses under 10 employees (13.2 percent adoption vs. 5.6 percent)

“The opportunity to migrate and manage companies in the cloud has really only just begun,” said SkyKick Vice President of Marketing, Chike Farrell. “Our data highlights that cloud-focused IT solution providers also have a significant opportunity to differentiate through specialization, combined with focused sales and marketing practices.”