Small-Medium Businesses Face Barriers to Technology AdoptionSmall-Medium Businesses Face Barriers to Technology Adoption

Depending on company size, barriers to technology adoption range from the lack of qualified staff to a lack of strategy.

Those are among the findings in a global survey of more than 200 small- and medium-sized businesses conducted by IoT World Today and AI Business.

The survey found a lack of qualified in-house personnel, a lack of budget and the complexity of integrating these technologies to be the three primary barriers to adoption for SMEs. 

For smaller companies (those making less than $50 million a year in revenue), lack of talent and budget were the two main obstacles, with 40% of business people identifying them as their top concerns. Complexity of integration was the third largest barrier, with 38% identifying it as a main concern. 

Larger companies (those with revenue of $50 million to $1 billion) identified different barriers. 

The primary barrier to technology adoption for larger firms was lack of strategy (37%), followed by complexity of integration and lack of talent (32%). Third was compliance and regulatory concerns (30%). 

For companies developing and deploying these technologies internally, lack of budget was the leading adoption barrier for almost half (48%). For those relying primarily on external sources for this technology deployment, lack of talent and complexity of integration were the main obstacles (49%).

Related:Small-Medium Businesses' Top Challenge Is Lack of In-House Talent

By region, businesses in North America said lack of talent was the leading barrier (40%).

In Europe, lack of budget was the leading obstacle to technology adoption for businesses, although lack of data and data quality issues was also a leading issue for smaller businesses.