GBBO should be seen as an opportunity, not a threat.

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.

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.

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….