Access to digital services must be a force for good and we must work hard to improve broadband accessibility and service take up across the country to ensure economic competitiveness. After all ninety per cent of jobs require some degree of ICT skill, over fifty per cent of jobs are only advertised online and those with access to broadband at home are likely to be twenty five per cent better educated than those who don’t. Being given the opportunity and encouragement to get online and experiment with the services that are available is a great way to improve your own ICT skills and to stop being digitally embarrassed.
But there is a downside as well. Broadband brings with it enormous opportunities but it also brings with it some threats, especially if you are unaware and not ready to address them. If you run a small business, especially if you operate in an area without access to good infrastructure, this may be you. The day arrives when suddenly all of your customers have good broadband and they are ready to purchase online. Your business may or may not be ready to tap into e-commerce but your competition already is. For smaller business, particularly in rural areas they will be faced with a new wave of competition that they have never really experienced in the past. Food retailers’ customers will be able to buy from the supermarkets and have their groceries delivered. Book sellers’ customers will have access to reading materials online in either hard or soft copy. Nearly every sector of business already has an online presence which theses ‘new’ customers will have access to and which will provide enhanced and stiffer competition to businesses.
Today I was at a demand stimulation event run by the Department for Culture Media and Sport and the presenter from the Post office gave us an example of a North East based construction company which within a year went from being a healthy competitive organisation to the edge of bankruptcy.
Their world had been turned upside down by both the recession and by a rapid influx of online demands. Because they did not have the skills and had not geared up for the transition and had no confidence or desire to get online they were not able to respond to tenders and had no confidence in their ability to estimate the larger and more complex jobs that were on offer. What they had become was just not good enough.
Access to digital services through superfast broadband is coming. It will be an inevitability. It will bring with it some enormous social and economic benefit but only if we are prepared to grasp the opportunity. If you are a small business you should be thinking about this now, developing your strategies and becoming aware and competent in the technologies in common usage. If not you will be left behind and become another casualty of the digital age.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 