Ten years ago, many IT consultants gave up on the SOHO (small office, home office) market. At the time, home offices shared equipment and networks with four-year-old, outdated operating systems, and a growing market of unsecure devices. For the most part, these offices had one business user and a family full of security holes that weren’t worth the investment it would take to make the environment safe.
Skip ahead a bit to the global pandemic. In Spring 2020, we all went home. Many took their computer setups with them. Lots of people bought cameras, of course. But they also invested in newer systems, anti-virus, and a host of do-it-yourself security tools. You probably made money with all that. But are you still making money?
The US Census reports that the number of home offices tripled between 2019 and 2022. And even when people started going back to the office part time, many continued to work from home some of the time. And, of course, a whole lot of old equipment got replaced somewhere along the way.
In February 2025, Gallup reported that 52% of “remote-capable” workers operated in a hybrid environment while 27% worked exclusively remote. It’s estimated that more than 32 million Americans are working from home.
Home offices are now far more professional – and complex – than they used to be. And that’s not a market you should ignore.
I’m actually writing this because of an email I got, asking the simple question of whether it’s time to take another look at the SOHO market. It definitely is! The next question is, how does this compare to the “standard” managed service contract based on monthly maintenance and recurring revenue. I’ll address that in a follow-up blog.
Questions:
1) Do you support small offices and home offices (the SOHO market)?
2) Do you sell a bundle of “managed services” into the SOHO market with recurring revenue?
Next time:
Building a SOHO managed bundle, and the best verticals for custom SOHO MSP services.
Sources for stats above:
- https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/journey-to-work.html
- https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-13/remote-work-productivity.htm
- https://invedus.com/blog/remote-work-statistics/
Comments always welcome.
:-)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feedback Welcome
Please note, however, that spam will be deleted, as will abusive posts.
Disagreements welcome!