SMEs Losing Out Through Lack of Knowledge

30 June 2006

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A lack of IT knowledge is damaging the competitiveness of Britain's small and medium sized businesses, according to a national survey commissioned by Lincolnshire County Council. This is backed up by separate research showing that UK SMEs are missing out on rising e-commerce takings.

Produced to coincide with the UK's largest roll-out of wireless-delivered business broadband, which is taking place in Lincolnshire this Summer, the survey of 672 SMEs by tickbox.net revealed that one in five SMEs - 800,000 nationally have missed out on a business opportunity because they did not have the right information and communications technology (ICT).

More than half the respondents (53 per cent) agreed that "small businesses do not have the access to ICT knowledge and support that larger businesses do and this can hinder business development."

One area where UK SMEs are failing badly is e-commerce. According to a National Statistic's survey into the ICT activity of UK businesses, only 40% of businesses represent themselves online.

The larger the business the more likely they are to succeed online. The largest 2% of online businesses account for 75% of the Net's UK revenue - sharing more than £53.4bn a year. in sharp contrast the UK's 1.5 million other online businesses generate just 25% of the total revenue.

Commenting on the findings, Lawrence Jones, MD of UKFast said: "Small and medium sized businesses are missing out on the Net's full potential. The figures are staggering. Less than 8% of all SMEs are profiting directly from the web."

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