Despite overall improvement for digital adoption among small businesses, over a million (23 per cent) still lack basic digital skills, a report has shown.
The 2015 Lloyds Bank UK Business Digital Index, which tracks digital adoption among small to medium sized businesses (SMEs) and charities, found that more firms are seeing the benefits of being digitally enabled, but there are still around 1.2 million that lack basic digital skills.
In the first year of comparison the Index shows that there has been slow but positive progress in digital adoption among all organisations in the past year with an overall rise in the UK Index score by two points to 102.
Digital maturity is measured by their use of social media, online sales, digital advertising, level of basic online skills and also their level of investment in digital infrastructure, training and use of advanced digital security techniques.
The study is based on analysis of the bank’s customer data plus a survey of just under 2,000 small businesses, charities, clubs and societies.
“This means thousands of UK businesses and charities could be jeopardising their future growth prospects because they don’t see the benefits of digital technology,” said the bank.
Rodríguez-Sola, group director for digital at Lloyds Banking Group, said: “Digital is the key to unlock these benefits.”
“Even if an organisation does not believe they need to be online, many of their customers already are,” she added. “There needs to be further awareness to give charities and businesses the confidence to do more online.”
Rodríguez-Sola, group director for digital at Lloyds Banking Group. “Digital is the key to unlock these benefits.”
“Even if an organisation does not believe they need to be online, many of their customers already are,” she added. “There needs to be further awareness to give charities and businesses the confidence to do more online.”