Small businesses in the UK still lag behind their larger counterparts in the use of technology and this can give the larger companies a competitive advantage. Even those (roughly) 50% of companies who do not have a website can gain benefits from an understanding of the possibilities for all opened up by this technology.
Key to understanding why you need to understand today's technology - is understanding your customers. According to one of our own surveys a quarter of respondents make use of Facebook. Are you ensuring you capture that market?
Do you sell products to people in the 16-35 age group?
Let's take a look at this age-group: Myspace is an online "blog" - a place where people can put up their personal details, rant about their problems, show their family snapshots, meet new friends etc. MySpace is but one online meeting place. There are many others. Worldwide there are over 43 million people in the aforementioned age-group who are registered with MySpace. Something for young male geeks? Sorry, no, 52% are male - i.e. a fairly even split. The site attracts a quarter million new users every day, There are 50,000 groups including fashion, health, wellness & fitness, sports and recreation, music, film, TV, etc.
What about shopping?
Ebay is now the world's largest single marketplace. In the UK alone, they have over 15 million customers. Very few of us have still not heard of Flickr, one of the largest repositories of photographs in the world, or YouTube, bought some time ago by Google for the better part of a billion pounds and not without good reason.
As more and more people buy and sell on the web, that in itself accelerates the process. Why buy retail when you can get comprehensive product information on the web with (generally) better pricing? Many people like to see their prospective purchase in front of their eyes and some are still wary about using credit cards on the web - but that IS changing - and more quickly than some think.
In 1997 the FSB first created it's own website and in 2000 I took over the reins. Since then several million people have looked into the website. I hope you will enjoy your stay and I urge members to take a look also at our benefits section to assist you in getting the best out of your FSB membership or perhaps to convince you to sign up.
Some interesting figures...
Why do we need high speed communications? Well for one thing, there's a lot of information out there. Apparently, global IP traffic is expected to approach 56 exabytes per month in 2013. Just use your phone as a phone? By 2013, 64% of the world's mobile traffic will be VIDEO!