Small businesses using apps in record numbers

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With the rise of small businesses using apps, the report reinforces a global strategy that focuses on delivering quality apps that eliminate customers’ biggest pain points.

Around the world, there is a clear trend that most small businesses using apps to run their businesses are also relying on the cloud.

These are among the findings of a multi-country study released by Intuit Inc. The study, which focused on small businesses in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia revealed that 64% of small businesses run in the cloud, 68 % use apps, and 66% use a smartphone. In addition, small-businesses owners are seeing – and experiencing – the long-term effect of mobile and web-based apps on their bottom line, allowing them to focus on growing their business.

The “2016 Appification of Small Business Report” is a first-of-its-kind study, providing insights from 2000 small business owners/managers. It also reveals a huge opportunity for small business app developers worldwide. The study also examines the attitude of small business owners who are not using apps to better understand their barriers of entry and the factors that could drive them to use apps.

While tech-savvy businesses are integrating apps in record numbers, they are also running into persistent barriers with existing apps, according to the study. About two-in-five small businesses believe there are too many apps to choose from. Forty-one% say they are unsure of which apps are best suited for their business, and 39% are concerned with costs to integrate and train on apps. Complexity was an issue for 23%.

“We’re thrilled that small-business owners around the world are transforming how they run their business, and integrating innovative new technologies to improve how they operate,” said Vinay Pai, vice president and head of the Intuit Developer Group. “Insights from this global study further reinforce our strategy to focus on delivering quality apps that eliminate our customers’ biggest pain points.

Opportunities for third-party app developers and partners

The growing apps marketplace for small businesses continues to be a lucrative opportunity for developers and partners. Intuit’s commitment to building quality integrations for its small-business customers provides third-party developers and partners with great resources and world-class tools when building for the QuickBooks platform.

For example, QuickBooks pays for an annual security assessment for all apps that are integrated to the solution. The platform also allows for deep user interface integrations.

Additionally, Intuit helps developers and partners market their apps on the largest small business apps store (Apps.com) and gives them access to over 1.5 million QuickBooks customers worldwide. Today, over 1200 apps are integrated on the QuickBooks platform, of which 400 are published in the app store, and 800 apps are private integrations.

“Since we launched our app in the Intuit QuickBooks Apps Store in November 2013, we have been able to expand our customer reach to new local verticals and plan to move into international markets next year,” said Richard McLean, co-founder of online payroll system KeyPay. “We are excited for what’s to come as more small businesses owners understand the true value of apps and rely on companies like us to play an important role in running and growing their business.”

Survey methodology

A representative sample of 500 small businesses in each region (U.S., Canada, Australia, and U.K) were surveyed by Ebiquity from July 13-20 2016. The vast majority of small-business owners and managers surveyed have between one and 50 employees. The types of business surveyed were: service-based (50%), product-based (23%), and hybrid (27%).