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Broadband SME market: keep the revenues burning |
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Tuesday, 20 March 2007 |
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A new report says that managed and bundled services will be the key for service providers as new customers get scarcer and bandwidth gets cheaper.
Based on the forecast that SME expenditure on broadband access is expected to peak in Europe by 2009, the industry must wake up to other possible revenue streams to maintain profitability in the SME segment of the broadband market. A new report identifies managed and bundled services offered on top of simple access as a way forward and predicts robust growth in this area..
The report, 'Strategies for Selling More to SMEs: analysis of demand for broadband managed services and service bundles', has been published by consultants Analysys. The study is based in part on a survey of 184 SMEs (businesses with 10-500 employees) in France, Germany and the UK.
It looks at the demand for a number of value-added services. Those covered include IP Centrex, IP PBX, other VoIP services, IP VPNs, Web-site hosting, email, Internet security, data storage, desktop management, software as a service, Web conferencing, and surveillance.
“From 2010 onwards, downward pricing pressure is expected to outweigh take-up of new broadband access connections by SMEs in Western Europe”, says the report’s author, Simon Sherrington. “This will push the value of the Western European SME market for broadband access into a slow decline. In order to sustain revenue growth, providers targeting the SME sector must introduce complementary services, and provision of broadband managed services is a key area for exploitation.”
Jim Chalmers
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