SMB Forum 2012: When the money is in vertical industries -
Chain pros looking for vertical industries to target many options, but no more promising than health care, according to speakers at the Forum SMB Channelpro held March 14 e Orlando, Florida.
during a session on vertical market opportunities, Barb Miller, vice president for government, healthcare, and technical services at Tech Data Corporation, noted that the income of the health distributor based in Clearwater Florida, have doubled every year for each of the past three years, fueled by federal efforts undertaken to digitize medical records. "It's like a money machine," said Miller.
Health, meanwhile, was just one of several hot vertical markets addressed by Miller and his fellow panelists. Others included:
Education -Don't let their flat IT budgets go wrong, Miller said. 33,500 K-12 US schools spend a lot on technology. "There is a lot of money out there," she noted, adding that virtualization, mobility and campus security solutions are best sellers in the education vertical now.
energy -North American energy companies, including nearly 3,000 municipal utilities SMB size and electrical cooperatives in the United States spent some $ 22.1 billion on iT in 2011, according to David Hutchinson, vice president of solutions to vertical markets Avnet Technology solutions, Americas, of Phoenix, Ariz. leader of the distribution based Avnet Inc. Although solutions for storage and measurement data analysis are especially popular at present, investments in infrastructure are rising sharply too, Hutchinson said.
financial services -With the worst banking crisis behind them, about 7,000 cooperatives credit in North America and 3,200 community banks are now upgrading from a wide range of applications and hardware obsolete. "There is a lot of pent-up demand," reported Hutchinson.
retail -According Hutchinson, some 90 percent of the 3.6 million retail establishments in the US are SMEs. commerce, analysis and mobile social media solutions are currently three of their biggest IT priorities.
Legal -No which bills its services to $ 300 an hour can afford downtime, noted Terry Hedden, CEO of Infinity Technology Solutions, a provider of IT services in Tampa, Florida. This makes law firms a natural market for managed services and backup and disaster recovery. And because lawyers are often away from their desks to depositions and hearings, they have a strong need for mobility solutions also observed Hedden.
Real -Mobility is a major concern in this vertical well, since real estate agents spend most of their time on the road with clients. Remote technical support and solutions based on cloud offering anytime, anywhere access to email and listings are additional focus areas for real estate agents, Hedden said.
nonprofit -Perennially tight budgets have non-profit organizations looking to reduce the complexity and expense in adopting cloud computing and virtualization, Hedden said. fundraising solutions are always in demand too, he added, noting that some organizations still are not even equipped to collect donations online. "Many non-profits are late," observed Hedden.
Perhaps the best news Hedden shared with members of the public, however, was that becoming a vertical specialist is particularly difficult. "You are much closer than you think you are," he said. Thank you for referrals and word of mouth, the customer base of a typical IT provider Poles naturally around a handful of industries. "Finding a vertical you are in marketing and start these vertical markets," advised Hedden. The results are likely to be rewarding.
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