The State of Small Businesses Report in 2017 [Infographic]

For the third year in a row, Wasp Barcode Technologies conducted a survey to identify how small business owners felt about their growth, confidence in the economy, employment, technology use, marketing tactics, and government impact.

The State of Small Business Report research is based on a random online sample of 1,127 U.S. small business owners/managers with companies with five to 499 employees. The anonymous survey was conducted via the Internet by Survey Monkey from November 10–18, 2016. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 2.9 at the 95% level of confidence.

Sample characteristics: 1,102 surveyed. All own or manage a small business. All headquarterd in the U.S.

Important Highlights for Small Business Growth in 2017

Approximately 42% of small businesses plan to increase IT spending in 2017. As a comparison, in the year before, 44% of companies surveyed planned to increase investments in IT.

Network security, upgrading networks and replacing computer hardware were among top changes in 2015 and 2016.

In the early 2016 report, 62% of larger small businesses (company size of 101 to 499 employees) were using or planning to use web-based or subscription-based software, while in the 2017 report numbers dropped to 57%. Out of smaller businesses (5–10 employees), 36% were thinking of taking this step in the previous year report. We see an increase in numbers, with 38% thinking of implementing web-based or subscription-based software in 2017.

Results are highly encouraging especially for startups, usually consisting of small teams (5–10 people), who are more oriented towards IT and cloud solutions in their growth strategy.

The full report can be found on their page, here.