This looks set to be bad news for the smaller marketing and advertising agencies who traditionally serve the SME sector and suggests the recessionary stereotype of slashes in ad spend slashes is more than just cliche.

Interestingly many small businesses (25%) were determined that spending on IT would not be cut back over the next year or so.

Perhaps unsurprisingly staff bonuses in medium-sized enterprises are also under threat, with 33% saying this would be the first area to be reined in.

Although bonuses may not be safe, day-to-day morale lifters like tea, biscuits and minor staff perks were one of the least likely areas to disappear as more and more firms look for financial savings as the recession bites.

[Picture credit: The Shane H licenced from Flickr]

Nearly half (49%) of the 500 firms that took part in the research said they’d lost business as a direct result of malfunctioning technology or internet outages.  In addition 43% said staff frustration at IT issues had lowered productivity.

Taking this lost time and productivity into account 22% of SMEs assessed the total annual cost to exceed £5,000.

This situation is made worse by a DIY approach to fixing IT problems as small businesses shun professional help to cut costs.  This comes at a time when the survey suggests that small firms are leading the way in adopting new technology as a means to compete more effectively.

Almost a quarter (24%) of those surveyed said they rely on mobile technology as they spend up to half of their time out of the office.

Gary O’Connel, managing director of Burn Marketing, commented on the research saying:

We never thought twice about downing tools and just trying to fix any technical hiccups ourselves …  It wasn’t until we’d expanded a bit and got a dedicated tech support service we realised how much valuable time we were losing trying to be IT technicians and not marketers. Now we’re able to concentrate on doing what we’re good at.

The old issues of delegation and false economies are as relevant in the technology space as any other for startups and small businesses.  Clearly, however, SMEs are facing tougher decisions on what they spend their money on as the economy continues to look bleak.

[Picture credit: Don Fulano licenced from Flickr]

To compound the risk, over two thirds of businesses (69%) said they had never tested whether they could retrieve all the information held on their backups.

Surprisingly, bearing in mind the low cost and variety of off-site backup options available, Connect’s survey of 151 UK companies shows that 89% use backup tapes to store data.

Mark MacGregor, CEO of Connect said:

It is alarming that one in three businesses are storing their backup tapes in their own offices. If there’s a fire, a flood or a burglary, they risk losing both the original data and the back-ups.

Like Dell, BT and Microsoft before them, LaCie has decided to aim one of its latest offerings, a RAID based shared storage system up to two terabytes, squarely at the small business sector.

Remote access allows users to instantly and securely obtain all files stored on the 2big Network situated at the office, with any internet connection.  For small businesses with a dispersed work force this type of shared storage could prove very useful.  However, I’d suggest this is something you’d probably only want to set up with professional in-house or outsourced IT support.

The 2big Network appears to be relatively good value for money with retail pricing for the 1 terabyte model expected to start at