IONOS Study Shows SMBs Need to Digitize

IONOS released the results of its annual survey of small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and found that they “view digitalization as important for their future viability.”

The survey revealed that nearly 80% of American SMBs consider digitalization important for their future, an increase compared to last year. American SMBs, however, fall behind their European counterparts. European SMBs put even more importance on digitalization, similar to the results found last year.

Americans led Europeans in cloud and AI adoption. American SMBs use the cloud for data and website storage, management, and backup as well as for financial systems.

The survey shows that SMBs see digitalization as a way to win new customers (75%), get discovered on the internet (76%), and create a modern image (76%). Interestingly, almost all European SMBs surveyed ranked these benefits higher than their US counterparts.

Increased efforts this year reflect the importance of digitization, with more SMBs investing in their website presence, creation of dedicated email domains and more social media presence. While the investment is up worldwide, the US continues to lag in comparison to European SMBs.

Those polled mentioned the main roadblocks to further investment in digitization are lack of time, the overall costs, lack of know-how, inflation, and lack of expertise in areas of data security and privacy. There is a “considerable decline” in perceived barriers compared to last year.

In December 2023, IONOS specifically focused on AI and found that SMBs are optimistic about how AI could contribute to their business, but remain concerned about the potential risks.

For the study, IONOS surveyed more than 4,800 respondents from SMBs in the UK, Germany, Spain, US, and France.

IONOS partnered with YouGov to conduct this year’s survey. YouGov is a market research and public opinion firm that provides internet-based data and analytics technology that “offer[s] unparalleled insight into what the world thinks.”

IONOS is a web hosting and cloud partner working with SMBs with data centers in the US and Europe. IONOS currently hosts more than 12 million domains within those data centers and is the largest hosting company in Europe.