Monday, 10 October 2016 11:21

Digital boosting small business productivity: Deloitte

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Many Australian small businesses have reached an advanced level of digital engagement and are much more likely to be creating jobs and growing revenue than their counterparts who are less digitally engaged.

A new Deloitte Access Economics report on the small and medium business sector for Google reveals that SMBs well advanced digitally are 1.5 times more likely to be growing revenue, easily outstripping small businesses that have just “basic” digital engagement.

And, according to Deloitte, in the highly competitive small and medium business (SMB) sector, digital engagement can be the difference between “success and treading water”.

Deloitte Access Economics partner John O’Mahony says SMBs are major contributors to the Australian economy and in 2014-15, they contributed $608 billion in GDP, representing over half of private sector economic activity and employed more than 7.2 million people.

{loadpositiion peter}“Engaging with, investing in, and then keeping up with digital in an increasingly digital economy, opens up significant new opportunities for SMBs in terms of agility, competitive advantage, innovation and growth,” O’Mahony says.

The report found that Australian SMBs that have reached advanced levels of digital engagement, compared to SMBs that have basic digital engagement, as well as growing revenue more, are:

•    eight times more likely to be creating jobs;

•    seven times more likely to be exporting; and 

•    14 times more likely to be innovating.

And, those SMBs advanced in digital engagement are also earning 1.4 times more revenue per employee and have a more diversified customer base, according to the Deloitte report.

O’Mahony says that the digital landscape is continually evolving as new technologies “change existing markets, drive increased competition and shift consumer expectations. The goalposts when it comes to being highly digitally engaged continue to shift”.

“SMBs are becoming more digitally capable over time across areas such as social media, e-commerce, websites, online marketing tools and data analytics.

“Yet despite the benefits we have identified, almost half of all SMBs at lower levels of engagement don’t regard digital tools as relevant for their business.

“This suggests that there is still work to be done in helping some understand the value associated with increased digital engagement.”

O’Mahony says the research shows that the research shows that there can be a “clear digital dividend for those businesses that get this right, and that there is significant risk for those that don’t.”

The new analysis in this latest report from Deloitte provides an update of the findings of an earlier "Connected Small Businesses" report for Google from 2013.

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Peter Dinham

Peter Dinham - retired in 2020. He is a veteran journalist and corporate communications consultant. He has worked as a journalist in all forms of media – newspapers/magazines, radio, television, press agency and now, online – including with the Canberra Times, The Examiner (Tasmania), the ABC and AAP-Reuters. As a freelance journalist he also had articles published in Australian and overseas magazines. He worked in the corporate communications/public relations sector, in-house with an airline, and as a senior executive in Australia of the world’s largest communications consultancy, Burson-Marsteller. He also ran his own communications consultancy and was a co-founder in Australia of the global photographic agency, the Image Bank (now Getty Images).

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