More than a million businesses can now benefit from Help to Grow, as the eligibility criteria expands to cover businesses with at least one employee.<\/p>\n
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In real terms, this means up to 1.2 million businesses could benefit from this expansion.<\/p>\n
What is the Help to Grow scheme? <\/strong><\/p>\n The Help to Grow scheme is designed to provide Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) leaders with free information and support to help them adopt and implement new software solutions.<\/p>\n The scheme provides tech support and allows eligible businesses to apply for grants which cover up to 50 per cent of the costs of cutting-edge software for customer relationship management (CRM), eCommerce, and digital accounting.<\/p>\n The software must be approved and worth up to \u00a35,000.<\/p>\n What does this mean for SMEs? <\/strong><\/p>\n The expansion of this scheme, which came into effect on 25 July 2022, will see a huge boost in productivity and the growth of the UK\u2019s small businesses not previously covered by the scheme.<\/p>\n Advanced CRM software, generally speaking, has been proven to boost productivity by around 18 per cent.<\/p>\n The scheme now also covers eCommerce software to help businesses increase sales of their products and services online.<\/p>\n The scope of the eCommerce software reaches inventory management, taking payments, and key insights into customer habits and behaviour to open new avenues of sales.<\/p>\n It is well documented that businesses which adopt eCommerce software see a 7.5 per cent increase in employee-to-customer sales over three years on average.<\/p>\n Does my business qualify? <\/strong><\/p>\n To qualify for the financial discount, businesses must meet all of the following criteria:<\/p>\n As the catchment for the Help to Grow Scheme has expanded, it is worth looking into whether your business qualifies.<\/p>\n\n