Small businesses use IT to support a healthy bottom line

A number of small businesses are looking to technology solutions to help the company do more with less as the recession lingers on and management looks for innovative ways to grow the business.

A new survey of Microsoft small business specialists in the U.S. and abroad revealed that 50 percent of respondents expect small and medium-sized businesses to reduce operating costs through IT investments - particularly via virtualization or IT consolidation on a small or midsize server.

The findings published in the Microsoft SMB Insight Report also show that experts anticipate more businesses will adopt software solutions hosted off-site.

"Historically, we have seen that SMBs have responded to economic contractions by intensifying their use of IT, both to cut costs and to defend and enhance their customer relationships," said Steve Reynolds, managing director for Access Markets International Partners.

"If SMBs respond to the current crisis as they have in the past, we can expect that a sizable number of smaller businesses will invest in IT now to lower operating costs, boost employee productivity and increase connectedness to customers so as to reap the benefits in the years," he added.