SkyKick Report: Office 365 Offers Huge Opportunity in SMB Sales

While many businesses are using Microsoft Office 365, they are still the minority, providing a major opportunity for IT service providers in a growing cloud market.

That’s according to SkyKick’s new State of the Office 365 SMB Cloud report. SkyKick analyzed cloud adoption for thousands of U.S. SMBs – companies with fewer 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 Todd Schwartz, SkyKick’s co-CEO. “For many businesses, the shift to the cloud begins with Office 365 …”

According to the report, 7.5 percent of U.S. SMBs are using Office 365, signaling that a “huge opportunity remains for IT solution providers.” The highest percentage of SMBs using Office 365 are in Washington state (10.1 percent), Oregon (9.4 percent) and Wisconsin (9.4 percent).

The industries with the highest percentage of SMBs using Office 365 are: industrial (coal mining, 30.6 percent; pipelines, 22.7 percent; railroad transportation, 21.6 percent); tech-focused business services (computer facilities management, 21.3 percent; holdings and investment offices, 19.9 percent; computer integrated systems design, 17.8 percent); and white collar business services (consulting services, 14.1 percent; insurance carriers, 13.5 percent; security and commodity brokers, 13.4 percent).{ad}

As the size of the business increases, the higher likelihood to adopt Office 365, according to the report. Some 16.6 percent of businesses between 51 and 250 employees use Office 365, versus the average of just 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 versus 5.6 percent).

“The opportunity to migrate and manage companies in the cloud has really only just begun,” said Chike Farrell, SkyKick’s vice president of marketing. “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.”