Easy Office Phone has shared its forecast of top small business trends which are driving Managed Service Providers in 2015.

Carl Watene, Vice President of Sales and Channel Development at Easy Office Phone, said: "The growing dominance of cloud-based business solutions, coupled with technology firms shifting their business models from IT to MSP, will mean that end-user companies of nearly all sizes will have access to and will leverage industry-leading, full-spectrum business continuity and security strategies."

Three key trends which are expected to significantly impact MSP‘s in 2015 include showing a greater demand for data recovery, a mix of investment into private and public cloud and higher implementation of security solutions.

SMB’s will show a greater demand for disaster recovery solutions after a change of feeling towards the necessity of the procedures.

The research shows that SMB’s are now adopting server virtualisation at a faster pace than enterprises which is leading to a realisation that a disaster recovery plan needs to be in place.

Dale Shulmistra, Technology Strategist at Invenio IT, said: "With a little more education, companies can understand that ‘natural’ disasters are only a portion of what can affect their business. They must now prepare in advance and essentially be assured of no downtime in the case of a disaster – whether it’s physical or virtual."

"Although we’re not there yet in terms of awareness, there’s been a steady improvement in SMBs recognizing the need for and value of continuity solutions. The corollary effect is that these solutions are more and more accessible to SMBs."

Public and private cloud adoption is likely to be the focus for SMB’s as an uptake of cloud adoption continues. Although the potential security risks could keep some businesses away from adopting cloud solutions, the expected price drop for online storage and data transfers is likely to make them reconsider.

Victor Liu, President, LinkHigh Technologies, said: "Due to needs for compliance standards within many verticals, and possible increased compliance standards in new verticals, the threat of major hacks from the organized crime syndicates of hackers is imminent. The need for a hosted private cloud solution will become essential for companies where security is paramount."

As SMB’s implement more public and private cloud solutions, the need for business to protect and secure data will become more critical and create a necessary evolution in security adoption.

Kartik Nagpal, IT Director at Flashbyte, said: "Every few weeks we hear in the news about companies whose data has been compromised due to hacks or carelessness."

"More companies and users are moving towards a mobile and cloud environment to save costs and become flexible, but the risk of the data being compromised has increased significantly since most of the data resides on or is accessible by laptops, tablets and smartphones these days."

"It’s important for businesses to discuss these issues with their MSPs and help them implement a process and/or services to prevent this from happening. Implementing a mix of local and online/cloud services as well as security protocols to help prevent, deter, or mitigate these types of issues is becoming a standard practice."