Google, Amazon Urged To Delay SMB Cloud Payments

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Top technology conglomerates including Google, Amazon and Microsoft are being urged to allow their startup and small business customers to defer payments for cloud services, reports in TechCrunch said.

According to the publication, the tech giants could help ease the cash flow crunch of their small business customers, who are facing unprecedented volatility due to the global coronavirus pandemic. As reports noted, cloud infrastructure is often a top expense for businesses, which are already hurting amid supply chain disruptions and forced store closures.

Deferring cloud payments could offer much-needed financial relief for small businesses in the same way deferring monthly rent payments can, TechCrunch noted, pointing to other major Software-as-a-Service providers like Salesforce as also able to extend this financial support to their small business clients.

In addition to easing cash flow challenges SMBs are facing today, deferred cloud payments will also preserve technology conglomerates’ biggest customer base.

As the publication noted, “the capitalistic truth and the story they could sell to Wall Street is that it’s not good for our business if our customers go out of business.”

Cloud spend can not only be expensive for small businesses, but also wasteful.

In a recent interview with PYMNTS, Trimwire Founder and CEO David Shi discussed why small businesses often find themselves wasting money on software subscriptions, many of which they may not even be aware of, with few resources and time to pinpoint where that spend leakage occurs.

“This is a huge problem,” he told PYMNTS. “There is a lot of chaos around putting a card onto a website to buy a subscription if you’re not aggressively checking your bank statement every month — which most companies are not doing. There is a huge probability that there is something on there you completely forgot about.”

Researchers have also highlighted the financial challenges small businesses face in their cloud spending. The 2018 International Business Festival published a report that found 45 percent of U.K. small businesses say upgrading technology is beyond their current spend capacity. Separately, a 2016 survey published by 1E revealed U.S. businesses spent $30 billion on software that went entirely unused during a four year period examined by researchers.