JABRA SME GLOBAL SURVEY UNDERSTANDING HANDS-FREE COMMUNICATIONIN FIVE MAJOR GLOBAL MARKETS

Thank you for your time last month answering our survey. We appreciate your honesty and your willingness to share your experiences and insights.

What follows, as promised, is a brief summary of the key findings. We hope you find it useful – and we hope you take the opportunity to get to know Jabra a little better, too!

ABOUT THE SURVEY:

We interviewed 1,500 IT decision makers in the SME market across five key countries – the United States, Mexico, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. These decision makers work in companies with 1-500 employees.

HELLO FROM JABRA!

THE THREE MAIN SECTIONS OF THE SURVEY WERE:

1. THE STRUCTURES AND PERCEPTIONS DRIVING HEADSET ADOPTION IN THE SEGMENT. 2. THE BUYER’S JOURNEY, FROM NEED TO INFLUENCE TO RESEARCH TO PURCHASE.3. THE HEADSET-SPECIFIC MESSAGES THAT MOST ATTRACT SME DECISION MAKERS.

We’ll look at each of these three areas in this summary.

STRUCTURES AND PERCEPTIONS DRIVING HEADSET ADOPTION

WHAT VOICE COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEMS DO SME’S USE? Traditional landlines still dominate SME voice communications, with hybrid landline/Unified Communications (UC) systems playing a significant role in larger SME’s. UC itself plays a significant and growing role across all SME’s. These trends are similar across all five countries studied.

WHAT HEADSET BRANDS ARE SME IT DECISION MAKERS AWARE OF? While many of you were aware of Jabra as a brand – particularly those who work in companies where “many” or “all” employees use headsets already – the most familiar brands in terms of awareness were Logitech, followed by Sennheiser. You should get to know us better!

HOW MANY SMES USE HEADSETS WITH THEIR DESK PHONES? The larger the SME, the more likely that “all” or “some” employees are using headsets today. In the 100-500 employee groups, 90%+ fall into these two groups, with virtually none reporting “no” headset use. The smaller MSME’s report about half this number, with only 44% saying “all” or “some” use headsets – and fully half reporting “no” headset use.

For those using some form of Unified Communications/VoIP, headset use is more common, with all SME segments in all countries studied reporting between 82% and 96% as “all” or “some” for headset usage.

PLANS FOR VOICE COMMUNICATIONS INVESTING IN THE NEXT 1-2 YEARS: When we asked IT decision makers about their plans for voice communications in the next few years, MSME’s were the most conservative, with close to 60% reporting no plans to change from their current landline systems – while larger SE’s and ME’s reported more interest in adding UC capabilities (40%+) or replacing their landline telephony systems completely with UC (20%+ in the 100-500 groups).

Even if we assume these numbers could be optimistic – we tend to act a bit more conservatively than our stated intentions, after all – these are interesting implications for the growth of UC (and for headset use).

THE BUYER’S JOURNEY: HOW SME’S PURCHASE HEADSETS

WHO MAKES THE DECISION? The most common way a headset in the SME is the business owner receiving the request from the employee, researching the model, and making the purchase decision out of company funds. This is uniform across all countries studied, with some variation on company size – the larger the SME, the more popular the second option is (employees purchase the headset through a designated supplier and the company pays for it).

HOW DOES THE DECISION MAKER CHOOSE THE HEADSET? The most common choice is the decision maker doing research online through independent user and expert reviews, at just over 40%, with taking the advice of the SME’s headset supplier a distant second, at just over 20%.

WHERE DO SME’S PURCHASE HEADSETS? Here, the differences in the countries studied were noticeable.

In the US, online and retail stores are most prevalent, with the lowest scores appearing for headset specialists. The UK also shows heavy reliance on online suppliers but with strong showings for specialists and reseller sales. France shows a similar order of top choices but with more balance, but with heavier emphasis on tech resellers and headset specialists. Germany shows a similar preference for online providers, but with stronger headset specialist role. Mexico shows the most unique of the countries studied, with headset specialists and online at parity and mobile phone carriers a strong entry as well.

WHAT HEADSET MESSAGES ARE MOST INTERESTING TO THE SME MARKET?

When we asked which messages were most appealing to the SME market, we saw the two most common benefits rise to the top, with the more specialized messages having less support.

The general “hands-free” message gained the most support, while the “wireless mobility” message came in second. This suggests that the basic benefit of headsets – allowing your knowledge workers to work hands-free while providing excellent customer service – still is very compelling. What’s particularly interesting is how important the “wireless” message has become. Knowledge workers in your SME can now get up, walk across the office, and do whatever is necessary to solve your customer’s problem without ever putting the caller on hold. This is significant shift over time. Is wireless going mainstream? Maybe so!

IMPLICATIONS:

When we look at this study in total, we see a few key insights worth noting:

• Voice communication is quickly moving towards Unified Communications/VoIP – and with it, headset use is rapidly going mainstream.

• The brands SME’s are most aware of are those they usually see on their desktops already – but as headset use becomes more commonplace and IT decision makers educate themselves on the brands available, the headset specialists, like Jabra, tend to become more important.

• Online is where SME’s both research and buy headsets.

• Despite the increasingly mainstream presence of headsets in the SME market, the general “hands-free” message is still the most valuable benefit.

ABOUT JABRA:

We greatly appreciate your taking the time to take our survey – but we’d be remiss if we didn’t tell you something about us while we have the chance!

Innovation has been in this Danish brand’s DNA since its beginnings – since it connected the capitals of Europe with Asia in 1869 with the first trans-Siberian telegraph lines. Think of it this way: Jabra has been a leader in communications since the age of clipper ships.  Since that time, Jabra has been an undisputed leader in sound, hearing and wireless communications. We launched the world’s

first Bluetooth headset, the first wireless headset, the first UC-enabled headset, the first active noise-cancellation headset, and a host of others.

Want to learn more about us? Visit us at Jabra.com.

Would you like to sign up to receive special sales offers, new product announcements and more Jabra news about our SME and consumer products? Visit us here, at Jabra.com/SME, and introduce yourself. We look forward to connecting with you.

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