How Aussie SMBs are driving cloud adoption

While it is no surprise to say that cloud has disrupted many traditional industries, what is surprising is the extent and enormous growth in new cloud industries. According to the ABS, almost 70% of Australian businesses are embracing cloud services with 20% using paid services. One area that has seen significant disruption is the contact centre market, which almost doubled its revenue in 2014, generating over $6 million. Not bad for a relatively new market.

This was found by Frost & Sullivan in a recent report on the cloud contact centre market. This trend looks set to continue its upward surge, with the industry set to be worth an estimated $51 million in 5 years. This is huge growth.

But what is driving this? The contact centre market has traditionally been the domain of the big end of town and ‘sticky’ within business, so where is this growth coming from? It’s all down to SMBs.

Traditionally, SMBs have been priced out of the contact centre market. A traditional on-premise model can cost millions and take months to get up and running. This just doesn’t work for SMBs. Where cloud comes into play is that a cloud contact centre can be implemented in a few weeks for a small fraction of an on-premise cost but still with all the bells and whistles. This not only lets SMBs develop a sophisticated customer engagement system but also helps them look and act like larger businesses.

Frost & Sullivan also put the SMB adoption of cloud contact centres down to their ability to scale quickly and mobilise operations, as well as pay-as-you-go structures, meaning that these smaller businesses don’t have to invest in the infrastructure.

Australia’s expansion in the cloud contact centre market is representative of the country’s forward-thinking approach to cloud adoption. There is a significant opportunity for tech companies and SMBs to benefit financially, not just in the contact centre space but across a range of industries such as accounting software and security.

As the majority of cloud services available are relatively new industries, they are still growing immensely. This means that there are opportunities for not only new businesses to enter the market, but there are openings for resellers to bring this new technology to more markets and more SMBs. Using the cloud contact centre as an example, the Frost & Sullivan report found there is a potential revenue of over $45 million over the next 5 years up for grabs, with a large percentage of this to be generated through resellers.

Ultimately, cloud-based solutions are an incredible growth market for Australian SMBs, providing opportunities for business owners to not only increase the efficiency of their own company, but also scale and profit from this growing industry.

John Palfreyman was recently appointed CEO of ipSCAPE. Prior to that he was executive chairman of the board and also sat on the board of Macquarie Telecom. He has been called an ‘IT industry guru’, having been involved in the technology field for decades.