A flagship government scheme that slashes the price of leading software, boosting productivity and growth of the UK’s small businesses, will benefit even more firms following changes to rules on which businesses can apply.
With Customer Relationship Management software proven to boost firms’ productivity by 18 per cent on average, the Help to Grow: Digital scheme offers businesses discounts worth up to £5,000 on approved software.
Previously, only businesses with more than five employees were eligible for the scheme. Now businesses with at least one employee are eligible to benefit. This boosts the number of eligible businesses by 760,000 so that it now reaches up to 1.24 million.
Another change is that eCommerce software is available through the scheme to help businesses ramp up sales of products and services online. This includes helping them to manage their inventory, take payments and gather data and insights on customers’ needs. Businesses which adopt eCommerce software see on average a 7.5% increase in employee sales over 3 years.
This means businesses can now access a £5,000 discount on 30 software solutions from 14 leading technology suppliers for eCommerce, Digital Accounting and Customer Relationship Management software.
Additionally, the government has announced that Help to Grow: Digital will support one-to-one advice for SMEs on how best they can adopt digital technology. The government will be launching applications for advice platforms to partner with the scheme from today, and the advice service will go live later this year.
Harrogate and Knaresborough MP, Andrew Jones commented:
The evidence is clear: using effective software lead to more sales and business growth. This is important because there are over 5 million small businesses in the UK which employ nearly 13 million people with a turnover of £1.6 trillion. I want to see those small businesses tooled up with the latest software technology and encourage them to take a look at this scheme.
Small businesses who would like to know more about Help to Grow should visit the Help to Grow: Digital site at https://www.learn-to-grow-your-business.service.gov.uk/
