DIGITAL ECONOMY
What is the digital economy?
What does the move to a digital economy mean for SMEs?
Why your business should be 'Digital'
As the growth of the digital economy develops at a rapid pace, the benefits of every business, no matter how small, becoming more digital are significant. Technology is now being applied to every aspect of life and in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.
The pace of technological change is breath taking and only those companies who recognise and embrace these changes are likely to survive.
With the rise of the cloud, mobile, and big data, and in a world where digital technology is shrinking physical distances and the barriers to entry, SMEs will face increased competition from their digitally-enabled competitors both at home but also, increasingly, from abroad.
Digital transformation is the process by which companies embed technologies across their businesses to drive fundamental change. The benefits? Increased efficiency, greater business agility and, ultimately, the unlocking of new value for employees, customers and shareholders.
Digital transformation: Understand digital transformation and how our insights can help drive business value.
Accenture
The digital economy in the UK
The UK boasts Europe's most advanced digital economy, fueled by a powerful combination of innovation and a thriving consumer market.
This dynamic environment makes the UK a prime destination for investment, attracting start ups, established tech giants, and businesses of all sizes eager to harness the power of digital technologies.
Key insights:
Economic Impact: There is a significant financial contribution from the digital economy to the UK, with an added gross value of £227 billion to the wider economy, underlining the sector's importance in the economic landscape.
Employment Generation: The digital economy is a major employment driver, directly supporting over 2.6 million jobs in the UK, which pay significantly above the national average.
Business Enhancement: The digital sector benefits businesses across the board by providing essential digital products and services, leading to an additional economic value of £113 billion.
Wider Job Support: Indirectly, the digital economy fosters job creation, contributing a further 1.6 million jobs beyond the direct employment figures.
"These findings reveal that the UK’s robust tech sector doesn’t just benefit the companies at the top – its success contributes massively to the country’s workers, businesses of all sizes, and the wider economy across the UK. The data is clear: a healthy UK tech industry means a healthy UK economy."
CCIA Chief Economist and Research Center Director Trevor Wagener
How do you facilitate your company's digital transformation?
According to Accenture, driving big change in an organisation is very difficult without developing and implementing a plan. Plans need to take into account customer experience, operational efficiency and how to drive innovation across the company.
Whilst understanding that digital transformation is of critical importance, many companies remain uncertain about how to begin the process, so the following are six steps that will help you plan for change to bring your transformation to fruition.
Business Transformation
Make customers your top priority by identifying the key bottlenecks your customers are facing.
Strategy & Organisational Change
Overcome Barriers
Partner Ecosystem
Your partners are also looking to improve their growth and operational effectiveness so collaborate with them.
Agile Approach
Fund As An Investment
Save your business Time and Money
Use our Digital Office Marketplace to find the right app for your business
that can help it grow and be more productive.
Save your business time and money
Use our Digital Office Marketplace to find the right app for your business that can help it grow and be more productive.
The SME competitive advantage
A focus on superior customer service continues to be a key competitive advantage for SMEs. Digital platforms such as BizEquals can further help to even up the competitive landscape so that big and small companies can compete on the basis of the quality of their product or service, not the size of their marketing budget.
Core digital activities according to the UK government
Our B2B digital platform is designed with you in mind. We want to provide your business with a ‘platform’ to showcase your company to the world.
We want to help you compete with larger companies on an equal basis, as business equals, hence our name BizEquals.
Key tasks to ensure success in the digital economy
Be prepared for change
The world is changing rapidly around us. Every business needs to grasp the fact that the pace and scale of change are unprecedented and is going to happen whether we like it or not. Therefore, understanding the change, embracing it, and wanting to make it work for your business is critical to success.
Building management and team structures that plan, lead, and manage change are vital so that your business models, processes, and practices are able to keep pace with change.
Innovate, Cooperate, Collaborate
SMEs have many advantages but some obvious disadvantages as well. To ensure that you don't get left behind, new collaborative ecosystems need to be explored.
Larger companies and business schools are just two sources of potential collaboration that can help drive innovation and development.
Know your customer better
As the economy changes, traditional industry structures will be broken down. Huge amounts of data can provide new insights into customer behaviour. Targeting your current, and new customers using new technologies in a more timely, personalised way, whilst ensuring the highest standards of customer service, will allow companies to stand out from the crowd.
Your customers are better informed about, and better connected to, markets than ever before. Make sure they continue to see you as a market leader, not a laggard and win their loyalty through the provision of a superior experience and service.
Get the right skills and technology
Using the smart (and cost-effective) technology that is now available to even the smallest company, business processes can be reimagined to help drive the productivity of your employees. Equipping them with the skills to exploit new connections and opportunities, to build new partnerships, and deepen existing ones, will transform your business.
Identify processes and functions that can be outsourced to free up your employees to focus on real-time, value-add activity that drives efficiency, productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability.
The big problem (for SMEs) is how to ‘spread the word’ about their innovative products or superior customer focus.
Our digital platform is designed for your business
Digitally network with other companies
Built with smaller companies in mind, our platform provides a unique way for companies to network digitally with other, like-minded, companies. Find out more about BizEquals and our philosophy here.
Our community is created ONLY by businesses adding their own details; we don't 'scrape' the web to fill it up with half-complete, out-of-date entries.
Our Premium subscribers:
In addition you will benefit from FREE business support (worth up to £1,000/yr) covering HR, H&S, Legal and Tax.
These savings are worth hundreds of pounds!
Efficiently grow your business
Small businesses can benefit from the range of features available on the BizEquals platform. Whether it is finding the right support or finance, planning how to export, or acquiring the necessary digital skills, BizEquals can help you easily find the right help to move your business forward. You may want to find an event or publicise your own, post your offers or reply to others, post wanted briefs, find a collaboration partner or list partnership requests.
Helping small businesses compete on an equal basis with larger companies
Introductory Offer: 50% off membership packages
Free for PREMIUM Members
BizEquals Protect
• THE HEALTH & SAFETY SERVICE
• THE LEGAL SERVICE
• THE TAX SERVICE
Premium members get:
5 Advice Lines - HR, Health & Safety, Legal, Tax & VAT
3 Document Libraries - HR, Health and Safety, Legal, with nearly 800 free, downloadable templates
“Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate… Something interesting is happening.”
Techcrunch