eAdoption Study 2005
55% of East Midlands businesses believe e-business is not important
The startling findings of the third annual East Midlands Small Business e-Adoption Survey were revealed last week and showed that over half of businesses in the region do not see e-business as important to their current needs.
Furthermore, over half (51%) of businesses do not appear to be interested in acquiring IT or e-business advice or support.
These results were just some of the findings of the 2005 e-Adoption Survey, commissioned by the East Midlands Development Agency (emda) to explore how businesses in the East Midlands are responding to the challenges of making e-business an integral part of their day-to-day processes.
The Survey was carried out between May and June and involved telephone interviews with 2000 businesses* each with up to 250 employees and across a range of industries within the private sector.
The areas surveyed, along with key findings are as follows:
1. Technology and levels of e-adoption:
- 70% of businesses in the East Midlands have a PC or laptop
- Levels of e-adoption increase with business size – 28% of self-employed have and use a website compared to 86% of those with more than 50 employees
- e-adoption is highest in Northamptonshire and lowest in Derbyshire
2. Broadband:
- 40% of businesses in the East Midlands have broadband rising to 59% in Northamptonshire
3. Integration of e-business technologies:
- The greatest use of IT is in Finance and Accounts where 51% of businesses use IT to support this activity
- 37% of all businesses integrate some or all of their business processes through IT
- 24% of businesses receive orders over the internet and the majority (88%) also allow customers to make electronic payment - substantially higher than previous years
4. The value of e-business:
- 45% of all businesses consider e-business to be essential, very important or important to the current needs of their business
- e-business is more important for larger businesses, and for businesses in Northamptonshire
- e-business has had a positive effect on profitability for more than 60% of connecting businesses
5. Attitudes to present and future e-adoption:
- The main reason why businesses have not adopted e-business to date is a perceived lack of relevance
- Most of these businesses do not believe customers, competitors or suppliers are ‘pushing’ them in to using e-business
6. Skills and training:
- A significant minority of businesses (27%) recognise the benefits of flexible working by providing staff with the facilities to work from home
- However, IT or e-business training is not high on most businesses’ agenda
- Over three quarters of businesses (77%) did not mention an area of e-business or IT training that was of use to them
7. Awareness and use of e-business support and advice:
- Around half of businesses (51%) do not appear to be interested in acquiring IT or e-business advice or support
- 70% of businesses are unaware of any providers of e-business support or advice
- 12% of businesses have used a source of advice or support in the past
Commenting on the findings of the Survey and its significance for the East Midlands, emda board member, Bryan Carr, said: “There’s plenty of evidence around that we’re living in a world which is increasingly reliant on information and communication technologies. However, this Survey has highlighted that over half of the small to medium sized businesses in the region do not consider e-business important to their current needs.
"We need to understand the factors surrounding this finding and address it along with the other issues reported in the Survey. We need to demonstrate to these companies that e-business is vital if the region is to prosper and to secure our place as a top 20 European region by 2010."
A fully indexed and key word searchable final report can be viewed online.
For media enquiries please contact: Catherine Keep on 0115 988 8583 or Matt Genever on 0115 988 8375.
Note: The East Midlands Development Agency was set up in 1999 to bring more jobs and skills to the region and to make the East Midlands a better place to live and work. By 2010 emda wants the East Midlands to be one of the top 20 regions in Europe. The latest figures from Eurostat show the East Midlands is already well on its way, moving from 35th to 28th place out of the 71 European regions.
*The results from the telephone interviews were weighted to represent the business population of 241,515 East Midlands businesses.