Bid to boost e-commerce
Online trading is ‘sleeping giant’ north of Border and firms urged not to trail UK
SCOTTISH companies are already at risk of being left behind amid “phenomenal” growth in global e-commerce, with UK hotspots for such activity having developed in London and the Midlands, a leading business organisation has warned.
And Scottish Chambers of Commerce, which has about 11,000 members, will this week launch a drive to boost the e-commerce expertise of firms north of the Border in an effort to ensure they are equipped to seize the opportunities.
Explaining the member-funded Scottish Chambers’ decision to offer support to businesses in this area, a spokesman said: “The opportunities in e-commerce are so enormous that they probably can’t be addressed by public agencies alone.”
Scottish Chambers cited recent figures from the Office for National Statistics showing that e-commerce sales had totalled £573 billion in 2014. This represented 20.1 per cent of business turnover.
The business organisation is at pains to dispel any notion that e-commerce is only about website design. It highlighted the importance of a raft of other factors, including fulfilment of orders in domestic and overseas markets, supply chain management, foreign currency considerations, and IT capability to ensure websites did not crash in the middle of the night.
Scottish Chambers also emphasised that a significant majority of e-commerce comprised wholesale or business-to-business transactions, as opposed to retail activity.
Nora Senior, who chairs Scottish Chambers, will launch the business organisation’s “E-commerce Excellence” project at an event in Edinburgh on Wednesday.
Ms Senior, who is also president of British Chambers of Commerce, is expected to tell her audience: “E-commerce is the sleeping giant of Scottish business. The world is moving fast and there is already a risk that our traders, whose products are highly attractive to international markets, will be left behind by this powerful new vehicle for promoting jobs, growth and exports.”
According to advance excerpts from her speech, she will tell businesses: “E-commerce is a precise and demanding medium requiring a specialist set of digital skills. It requires immense attention to detail and flexibility to keep up with constant technical developments.
“The UK is a world leader, but the hotspots are currently in London and the English Midlands. There is no reason Scottish traders can’t fully share these benefits.” Ms Senior will highlight a need to know more about the “scale of the challenge”.
The E-commerce Excellence project, for which technical direction is being provided by Glasgow-based INDEZ, will initially research the current scale and scope of Scottish firms’ activities in this area. Scottish Chambers then plans, through its network, to link companies which are pursuing e-commerce projects with experts in this field.
Ms Senior is expected to tell her audience on Wednesday: “The global e-commerce explosion has been phenomenal in the last five years, eclipsing all other forms of trade.
“Scottish businesses need a reliable, commercially neutral source of practical, actionable advice on online trading, and the Chambers can facilitate this by linking up would-be e-commerce players with experienced providers and sharing their knowledge throughout the business community.”
Pete Mowforth, director of e-commerce services provider INDEZ, cited the importance of issues such as warehousing, stock control, logistics and security in e-commerce, and declared: “It is a bit bigger than just web design.”
He cited potential for the E-commerce Excellence project to provide practical workshops for businesses, and to highlight case studies of companies enjoying major success in online trading. Mr Mowforth also sees a need for professional e-commerce courses to be developed.
Scottish Chambers cited the online trading successes of Scottish businesses such as Toolstop, Barrhead Travel, The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, and Jenier Teas.
However, it claimed: “There is no shared expertise or critical mass within the embryonic Scottish e-commerce sector.”
Mr Mowforth, who cited the importance of e-commerce in the drive to boost exports, said: “Scotland already has some fantastic e-commerce success stories, including small-town companies that have grown into multi-million revenue exporters in a matter of a few years. But there is scope for so much more.”