Are enough of New Zealand's small businesses leveraging technology?

Technology has changed the face of the business world. Whether it's in dealing with customers or brokering partnerships with other companies, it's unlikely that there are many organisations left that haven't been touched by the digital revolution in some way.

New Zealand's enterprises and technology

However, in New Zealand, there still seems to be some disparity between the apparent need to leverage technology, and the amount of small businesses that are doing so. In Westpac's Grow NZ 2015 report, in which some 1,200 SMEs were surveyed, only 56 per cent have an active website.

Moreover, only 20 per cent are effectively using online communication tools. While these statistics seem like negatives, there are reasons behind them. While the mass adoption of small business software and technologies is yet to fully take hold across the entirety of the country, the main issue seems to be enterprise security.

In fact, New Zealand's Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment has surmised as much, with the government body even introducing 'fraud week' to ensure that business owners have the knowledge and tools to keep themselves safe, and their information secure, in the digital space.

More on fraud week 2015 can be found here:

So, what are small businesses so worried about protecting?

The power of business data

Those who have pursued technology and are making efforts to digitise their processes as much as possible will likely be familiar with the concept of big data. In short, the term accounts for the vast amount of information collected by organisations in today's business world.

In the past, it may have consisted of physical information locked away in an array of filing cabinets. In the here and now, it's all moving online.

Enterprise data security is becoming a bigger issue as more of the business world moves its processes online.

However, a survey conducted by EMC Australia and New Zealand suggested that SMEs may not be getting the support they need from software vendors. Sixty-four per cent agreed that having access to data and leveraging it using technology is a critical issue, but only 10 per cent believe that the available solutions are developed with the needs of small business owners in mind.

In CashManager from Accomplish's case, the complete opposite is true. Financial data is just as important as any other information, and having an effective system in place to collate and store it is crucial. CashManager from Accomplish has the wants and needs of SMEs in mind, and is an effective tool in the aforementioned, ever-evolving, digital age of business.