When it comes to today’s threat landscape, IT professionals can be forgiven for muttering their favored imprecations, followed by a frustrated, “Now what?” The current onslaught of cybersecurity exploits targeting businesses is characterized by a stunning variety and velocity that have never been seen before.
So it’s no surprise that SMBs are devoting even more care and thoughtfulness to their decision-making processes when choosing endpoint security solutions. To gain greater insight into these purchasing decisions, the research firm Opinion Matters® surveyed an independent panel of 1,000 US-based IT managers, IT directors and CISOs in companies with 1-500 employees.
Conducted between December 2019 and January 2020, the survey posed 10 questions about topics including the respondents’ preferred IT products/services, their most pressing security challenges, factors driving their buying decisions, and what security products they anticipate purchasing in the next 24 months.
The survey results offer an enlightening glimpse into the priorities that shape SMB purchase decisions. Getting maximum protection for the best price are obvious goals any company would pursue, but the respondents also indicate a strong preference for security solutions that combine easy-to-use data loss protection with the benefits of working with a trusted vendor partner.
Purchase Criteria Go Beyond Performance, Price
In the following 5 questions and responses excepted from the complete survey, it quickly becomes apparent that superior threat protection and affordability are not enough to satisfy the data security requirements of the respondents; the ease of deploying a security solution, the need to educate users about potential threats and the importance of working with a trusted partner all play key roles as well.
Top 5 IT security products/services used by SMBs
1. Anti-virus/anti-malware software
2. Password protection/management
3. Email security (anti-spam/anti-malware/sandboxing)
4. Backup & disaster recovery
5. Web security (DNS, content filtering)
Password protection/management is a strong priority for all of the respondents, and digging deeper into their company profiles reveals that smaller firms (under 49 seats) are particularly interested in password security capabilities.
Biggest IT security challenges
1. Keeping our data secure (47%)
2. Preventing data loss/information leakage (42%)
3. Employee security awareness (41%)
4. Growing security attack complexities (35%)
5. Threat visibility (28%)
Asked to choose up to three challenges, the survey participants put data security in first place by cumulative votes, but in terms of being most frequently selected as the #1 challenge they face, data loss/information leakage took the top spot. This suggests end user actions/behaviors that inadvertently expose data to cybercriminals remain a major concern.
Cause of most ransomware infections
1. Malicious websites/web ads
2. Spam/phishing emails
3. Lack of end user training
4. Security in place, but not configured correctly
These responses highlight the need to educate company staff on ways to identify potential ransomware threats, but also the need to implement security solutions that are easy to deploy, configure and manage. The best protection tools in the world will often be ineffective if they are difficult to use.
Top 5 buying decision influencers
1. Product effectiveness
2. Price
3. Brand reputation
4. Internet research
5. Online reviews
The top two influencers are as expected, but note the weight the respondents give to working with a trusted brand; SMBs understand that cybersecurity is an ongoing effort, and consistent support from established solution vendors helps SMBs strengthen those efforts.
Preferred way to purchase IT security products/services
1. Buy directly from vendor online
2. Buy through a Managed Services Provider (outsourced IT)
As many SMBs are under increasing pressure to boost productivity while dealing with strict budgetary constraints, it makes sense they would prefer the efficiency and convenience of purchasing their security products online from the solution vendor, or through their existing MSP.
Why purchase this way?
1. Trusted advisor/relationship (50%)
2. Ease of purchase (48%)
3. Best price (46%)
4. Personal relationship (35%)
5. Corporate account (27%)
6. Out of habit (18%)
These responses are compelling, highlighting the importance SMBs place on the reputation and credibility of the solution vendor. Asked to choose all responses that apply, the survey respondents (across every company size in the survey) chose “trusted advisor/relationship” as their #1 priority. This shows they clearly value the long-term benefits they will gain from a trusted advisor/partner.
Get Infographic
To help SMBs leverage these survey results during their own security solution purchase deliberations, VIPRE has created a handy infographic that highlights many of the key responses in the Opinion Matters research study.
The post Survey Highlights Top SMB Priorities When Purchasing Cybersecurity Solutions appeared first on VIPRE.
