08/22/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 08/23/2024 13:27
In our SMBs at Work 2024report, we explore how SMBs navigate today's dynamic app landscape. Powered by anonymized data from over 18,000 companies and how they adopt thousands of applications in the Okta Integration Network, the report details how today's growing companies are using applications and setting trends.
Small and midsize businesses (SMBs) adopt applications at a quicker pace than larger businesses. But they're not adopting randomly, and not all app categories saw growth.
In our first blogabout the report, we covered large overarching trends. In the second, we explored how SMBs are adaptingand thriving in an ever-changing security landscape.
Today, we wanted to find out what apps SMBs are adopting at a faster clip and why.
When everyone is pushed to do more with less, you may begin asking: Do I have enough tech? Too much? Where should I invest to stay competitive?
Looking at the data, we begin to see patterns of what's been working for SMBs.
Businesses of all sizes average around 93 apps, and SMBs generally come in below that number. While all sectors show significant YoY growth in app deployment, SMBs on average still deploy 30-60% fewer apps than larger businesses.
The smallest businesses, with 50 or fewer employees, deploy less than that, at around 36 apps. Aggressive expansion is the name of the game for small businesses, who focus on security tools (up 61% YoY by number of unique users), e-signature apps (up 47% by unique users YoY), and travel (up 27% by number of customers).
Though the average number of apps used by SMBs is smaller than larger organizations, SMBs do have a higher app density per employee headcount.
The top five categories by number of customers show SMBs are doubling down on core functionality. Simply put, SMBs are investing and reinvesting in what already works, whether that's design software like Canva, Figma, and Adobe Creative Cloud, or legal apps like LegalZoom, DocuSign, and Rocket Lawyer. Travel and office supplies were also popular growth categories, suggesting SMBs are resuming more post-pandemic business travel and resupplying their office spaces.
Growth of categories by unique users and number of customers
Is there an app out there that will help grow your business? What apps are helping other SMBs?
The top apps for SMBs probably won't surprise you - the workplace workhorses Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, and AWS are familiar to most workers and hold top spots when we look at all company sizes as well.
Exactly half of the fastest-growing tools this year were in the compliance and security space. Beyond foundational business apps, we also see SMBs adopting legal tech at a much faster rate (51%) than the overall market (35%). Collaboration apps like Slackand Boxalso rank higher for SMBs than the market when looking at the top apps overall.
Small businesses (50 or fewer employees) particularly dug into design, security, and travel categories this year. Like their medium-business counterparts, compliance and security helped them stay ahead in part by leveraging automation and features like single sign-on and VPNs/firewalls.
Interestingly, the data also shows popular apps change over time as a company changes size, introducing new functionality they may not need until a certain size.
For instance, data compliance is one of the hottest app categories this year, with Drataas the number one used app - once SMBs have over 400 employees. In the travel category, companies with 50 employees or fewer mostly used TravelPerk, while companies with 51 employees or more preferred Navan.
Similar preference changes occur - at different transition points - across other categories, including finance, job boards, email, and design software.
SMBs ramped up fast with a few apps outside the most popular categories. Sales and marketing app ZoomInfowas up 109% YoY growth, and expense management tool Rampwas up 97% YoY.
YoY growth of some of the fastest growing apps for SMBs.
Specifically looking at the 50 most popular apps, Canvais the winner when it comes to fast growth among SMBs, with 76% growth by customers and 171% by unique users.
Showing some appreciation to developers, Grafana(up 64% YoY) is the fastest-growing app in the developer tools category. Other big growers included Heap(up 56%) as the fastest-growing analytics app, and Airtableas the fastest-growing project management app (up 34%).
There's a lot of good insight to be gained from analyzing the data and viewing it from above for trends and patterns. While organizations are still doing their best to do more with less, they're also deploying best-of-breed and most popular apps to ensure they stay competitive in this data-driven economy.
So, what else can we learn or ask ourselves after looking at SMB app use?
Learn more:
SMB at Work 2024
SMB homepage
Okta Integration Network