Digital academy debuts, aiming to help 10,000 Scottish companies develop websites and improve their online skills
A digital academy has launched today, committed to helping more than 10,000 Scottish businesses with their online skills.
Bank of Scotland is behind the initiative, which is also targeted at individuals and charities. It aims to help users build a wide range of skills, from improving confidence online to developing a website for your business, managing your money and staying connected with friends and family.
The academy includes access to online events for small businesses and charities to network virtually and hear from expert speakers, and comes amid Bank of Scotland’s latest research, which revealed that a third of people said they would improve their digital skills if they knew support was available.
Philip Grant, chair of Lloyds Banking Group's Scottish executive committee, said: “Being online has become part of everyday life for many more people and creating the Bank of Scotland Academy is all about helping people build the right digital skills.
“For small businesses, digital confidence and capability have been crucially important. In the last year, 44 per cent of small Scottish businesses wouldn’t have continued trading without digital facilities.
“Having the right digital skills means that people can stay connected with loved ones, businesses can run more efficiently, and charities can raise more funds by reaching more people.”
Meanwhile, today also sees the publication of the latest small business equity tracker fromthebritishbusinessbank (BBB), revealing that the burgeoning tech sector accounted for 44 per cent of equity investment in Scotland’s small businesses last year.
Smaller companies in Scotland saw a total of £284m in equity deals in 2020, while the number of transactions in the tech sector grew by 16 per cent, exceeding the UK’S 12 per cent increase.
Mark Sterritt, UK network director of evolved nations at the BBB, said: “Last year saw a record number of small businesses receiving equity investment in Scotland, placing the country ahead of other parts of the UK, except London. Our analysis suggests this has continued into 2021, as the Scottish economyrecoversandinvestor confidence returns."
One year ago some commentators were proclaiming the ‘death of the office’. Now, with vaccination programmes well underway, most people I speak to say they are looking forward to going back to their workplaces, perhaps not exactly as they did before.
A variety of studies in recent months have shown that workers do not want to return full-time, instead favouring a ‘hybrid model’ of time in the office and part of the week working from home.
As the latest edition of Knight Frank’s (Y) our Space report shows, while offices are bound to go through some changes in the months ahead, they have also seldom been more important to occupiers.
Around 90 per cent of respondents to the survey conducted for the report said that real estate remains a strategic part of their business. In Scotland, we have seen that playing out through Edinburgh’s resilient take-up figures over the course of 2020 and into 2021.
Occupiers – despite many having very limited access to their workplaces – committed to hundreds of thousands of square feet of space in the city, including one of the biggest office deals of recent years.
The importance of office space may not have changed, but the way organisations and their staff use it almost certainly will – with the need for greater flexibility chief among them.
Again, (Y)our Space points to some of the ways this could evolve: nearly four in 10 of the companies surveyed said they see their offices as a tool for improving employee wellbeing, collaboration and talent attraction and retention.
Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to how businesses go about this – it will need to be specific to each of their needs. Nevertheless, wellbeing is one of the main themes that has come to the fore, with nearly
half of occupiers saying they plan to increase amenities available to staff in their offices, ranging from mental health support and gym facilities to on-site catering options.
Another major focus will be environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) credentials. The pandemic has only increased occupiers’ appetite to be part of the fight against climate change, with a range of businesses and public sector institutions setting net zero targets. Their property footprint will be a critical part of those efforts.
The changing and varied needs of occupiers should provide landlords with food for thought – for one, they will need to create and provide space that can be quickly adapted. Perhaps of greater importance, it will also require changes to the traditional landlord-tenant dynamic, making way for relationships based on collaboration and communication.
To a degree, there are tentative signs that the pandemic has already helped foster new ties: 60 per cent of (Y)our Report survey respondents said they had seen an increase in communication with their landlord and figures we obtained from RICS this year showed the number of rent disputes referred to third-party determination halved last year in Scotland. The pay off for landlords will come in the form of more satisfied occupiers and, therefore, fewer void periods. There is, however, still work to be done. Flexibility on space and terms was a prominent theme before the pandemic and is even more so now.
Simon Capaldi is office agency partner at Knight Frank Edinburgh