Getting British business online
February 25th, 2010 by Alex_GoldupThe internet is a wonderful thing. Stripped down to its core, it makes the previously inaccessible, accessible.
This is particularly true in the context of business. For businesses, it means that they can reach customers who were previously placed out of reach by all manner of distances and barriers. You no longer need a eye-watering marketing budget to reach distant customers, and in this respect the internet is also something of a leveller.
In spite of the benefits to businesses of having an internet presence, many small and medium-sized UK businesses are not online. Despite operating within one of Europe’s most advanced e-markets, with over 40 million now online, as many as 1.5 businesses in the UK do not have a website.
Getting British business online must be a central part of any strategy to encourage enterprise and help existing businesses to be better and more effective at what they do. To this end, Enterprise UK has partnered with Google and other partners including e-skills UK, PayPal, and the Institute of Directors to launch Getting British Business Online, affectionately known at EUK towers as GBBO.
GBBO gives small and medium sized businesses the opportunity to sign up for a free website. A new ‘wizard’ tool will allow businesses to create their website in around fifteen minutes. Even better, new websites will be icluded in Google’s search index and added as a business listing in Google maps. BT, E-Skills, and the IOD are all offering teriffic support, too.
So, if you’ve got, or are setting up, a business and were put off by the cost or technical difficulties of setting up a website, click on over to the GBBO site and make the most of what the internet has to offer.
February 26th, 2010 at 10:03 am
The intenret is a double edged sword. Yes it provides access. But if you provide a poor service it can also destroy you.
The rush to get British Businesses Online is dangerous. Where is the consideration of markets and their prefernces for communication? Where are the channels being explored? Where are budgets being set? How are the disciplines of marketing being encouraged by promoting knee jerk form filling to get yourself online.
There are millions of websites that no-one ever looks at that never generate any business because they were thrown up on a whim. Encouraging more of the same is by no means an obviously winning strategy.
But Google will love it….
February 26th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Mike, I disagree with your assertion that we’re promoting “‘knee-jerk form filling”, as you put it.
What we, together with our partners, are doing is making a tool available.
Separately from this, we trust that businesses have the maturity to make an independent judgement about whether an online presence is appropriate to their needs and capacity.
Businesses themselves should judge what’s appropriate for them. If a decision to go online is made, it’s up to schemes such as GBBO to make it as easy and painless as possible. That can’t possibly be a bad thing.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:55 pm
This looks like a good service for small businesses and because it’s free it’s shortcomings can be forgiven.
Larger entreprenuerial businesses are likely to need a more effective solution than this particular service especially if they are looking to establish their brand and promote it effectively to a wider audience.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Absolutely – there is a lot of untapped SME custom out there. By exposing more SMEs to the benefits of being online, the better it will be for the UK web development sector in the long term.
GBBO should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat.