Events in the tech world are increasingly validating the LSA’s decision to launch the Tech Adoption Index, an initiative that measures and analyzes the small business shift to the cloud to manage all aspects of their business operations.
On this week’s On Target podcast (below), Charles Laughlin and Neal Polachek, the industry analysts working with the LSA to build the TAI, talked about three recent events that help advance the TAI narrative.
“We are at the beginning of what will be a fascinating ride in the SMB space,” Polachek said.
Event No. 1: Last week’s announcement that the Royal Bank of Canada is working with Acquisio to sell search engine marketing campaigns to SMBs. This demonstrates the desire of companies with SMB relationships to expand their core service offerings, a key premise driving the TAI.
Event No. 2: Dex’s acquisition of YP to create DexYP. With Dex in the driver’s seat of that deal, its Thrvy marketing automation product will be the core of its go to market strategy. Thryv is essentially an SMB operating platform, and it represents a shift away from selling leads to providing SMBs with software that enables them to compete with big brands. The hoped for outcome of this strategy is much better margins and a more stable customer base.
DexYP, along with Google, is a charter sponsor of the Tech Adoption Index.
As Laughlin and Polachek note, DexYP will focus initially on selling Thryv packages deeper into its now 700,000 SMB customer base. The bigger, longer-term challenge will be selling Thryv to the wider addressable market, which includes many younger, newer businesses that are digitally savvy and unlikely to view a brand with Yellow Pages heritage favorably. Polachek noted that any initial disadvantage can be overcome by delivering a superior customer experience.
Event No. 3: Microsoft’s announcement that it will add email marketing and invoicing functionality to its Office 365 suite. Yet more evidence that once you have small business customers in the cloud, there is an opportunity to add services and become an indispensable partner to that business.
Listen to the podcast (above) to hear the full conversation about these and other recent SMB cloud events in the news and to learn more about the Tech Adoption Index. You can also visit the TAI page on the LSA website to learn more.
