SMES reluctant to embrace digital options

Scottish small businesses are cautious about using digital skills to aid growth, according to a survey published yesterday.

Four in ten small and medium-sized enterprises (SMES) in Scotland do not feel that digital skills will be important for theirfuturegrowthprospects, says research conducted by Yougov on behalf of online retailer Amazon.

The report highlights the reservations of some small businesses to adopt a digital strategy, with more than half saying they do not believe they require strong digital skills from new recruits.

However, the same research showed that 40 per cent of Scottish SMES currently using e-commerce to sell goods and services plan to increase their use of it to grow sales in the coming year.

Doug Gurr, UK country manager at Amazon, said: “We know that digital technology is having a transformational impact around the world, and it’s small businesses that can benefit the most from technological advances.

“However, it’s also clear that many small businesses still struggle to see the relevance of digital technologies to their future growth prospects.”

Yougov’s research comes just days after a study from the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) showing that confidence among small Scottish firms has recently jumped to a three-year high.

This prompted FSB Scotland policy chairman Andrew Mcrae to call for Scotland’s decision-makers to nurture small firms and deliver “on promises to improve the country’s digital infrastructure”. 0 Doug Gurr: ‘It’s SMES that can benefit the most’