SMB and Springtime in the Channel

As the 2012 business year gets underway, there is smoke in the air, and anger on America’s streets and in its kitchens.

America has seen sunnier days. Our economy continues to be flat, unemployment continues to be high, and debt and deficits continue to haunt all levels of government and too many businesses and consumers. National news coverage continues to point at China and India as the rising economic powers, and bewail the pitiful economic condition of the U.S., Europe and Japan, the traditional post-war engines of growth and innovation.

Normally, I like a good cry as much as the next guy and, like any self-respecting pundit, I love a chance to rant. But I’m not buying this edition of the Book of Doom, Gloom and Woe. I am turning the page on anger and despair.

Our friends at Channelnomics opened the year with an interesting piece by Marie Lingblom. (Full disclosure: Channelnomics is a product of The 2112 Group, and its CEO Larry Walsh. Channel Partners and The 2112 Group are partners in the Cloud and Technology Transformational Alliance, or CTTA. You will be hearing quite a bit about the CTTA here during 2012). In her piece, Ms. Lingblom, citing The NPD Group’s SMB Technology Monitor, reports that “nearly three-quarters of U.S. small and mid-sized businesses … with fewer than 1,000 employees have plans to purchase tablets over the next twelve months…." Ms. Lingblom goes on to say, “These findings of SMB adoption echo other recent surveys and market predictions on business tablets as more resellers, service providers and integrators are asked to support them. Other solution providers are beginning to sell tablets alongside their PCs and servers."

Back to the business moment in America: Our economy is permanently, implacably dynamic. The economy, historically, has taken hard hits, and bounced back stronger than ever. Sure, the global economy is more competitive than ever. Sure, India and China have some competitive strengths we lack. Sure, the debts, the deficits, the unemployment are all real. The last three years are not simply a bad dream, a figment of a long fevered night.

Nevertheless, dawn is inevitable. Dawn in the States comes when our historic economic dynamism, baked into America’s DNA, recovers its strength and optimism, and renews its well springs of imagination and innovation. In America, unlike China or France, the SMBs are the catalyst for innovation and dynamism. SMBs are the key to solving the employment problem, which in turn is the precondition for the next great surge in growth and prosperity.

The Channelnomics story shows SMBs are ready to begin major investments in the great contemporary productivity tool, the tablet. The phrase productivity tool in this context implies not just lower cost capability, but a commitment to and confidence in sustained business development.

Here is what I think. SMBs are about to massively reinvest in their future and, in the process, spur a new round of economic innovation and growth. The economy will be regenerated, once again, by the entrepreneurial brilliance of SMBs. And the channel is right where it wants to be: at the intersection between business technology solutions and the latest SMB innovation.

But that analysis poses one more question for partners: are you as ready for the next phase of economic growth as you need to be? Here is what I think: some are, and some aren’t.

If you self-identify with the latter group, you have time to catch up – but time grows short. A change is coming. Prepare for it.

Larry Lannon is group publisher of VIRGO ’s Communications Network, which includes Billing & OSS World , Channel Partners and V2M .