Chat GPT and other tech including contactless ordering, are helping to keep venues alive in the midst of one of the country’s worst labour shortage catastrophes, says Luke Reimann.

What’s going on in the hospitality sector? 

• Staff shortage is getting worse
• Staff wages are rising at the fastest rate ever
• Venues are finding things tough
• Chat GPT and contactless ordering tech are helping venues to undertake core functions and stay afloat
• Tech is saving venues and jobs

“Everyone I talk to across the industry is struggling to get staff. Venues are offering incredible incentives and deals to attract and retain staff,” Reimann said.

“Introducing contactless ordering is one of the best things we have done at The Botany View Hotel. Not only has it enabled us to place staff where they are needed most, it has also reduced ordering mistakes as well.

“Staff can now focus on ensuring food and drinks are prepared and served quickly. It has also reduced the handling of monies as well. We are experiencing far less loss as a result.

“Our customers have the option of ordering in person or using our app. 95 percent use our app and find it really easy and convenient.

“You don’t have to get out of your chair. You simply open your phone, hover the camera over the QR code and the menu comes up. Ordering is easy and you simply pay through the app once you have selected all your items.

“I am encouraging people to take advantage of the new tech that venues are offering. It is making life easier for the hospitality sector and also enabling venues to stay open, even when they can’t get enough staff.”

Reimann states that the tech is also reducing the load on venue owners, managers and staff as well.

“Once upon a time, staff needed to be briefed on what deals were being offered every night. We spent a lot of time briefing and training people up to ensure everyone was across all the new offers when staff arrived for their shift,” Reimann said.

“Now, thanks to tech, floor staff don’t even need to know. Customers can order through the app and get exactly what they ordered. All the information is loaded up into the app by management so customers can access the deals directly.

“Contactless ordering and payment has probably reduced staffing by up to 30 percent. With staff wages increasing significantly due to the labour shortage, this means we can focus on supporting our team where needed and channel funds into other areas of the business.

“With the cost of power and other operating expenses going up, tech and automation is helping us to reduce costs in some areas which is critical in the current operating environment.

“Hospitality is a very service-heavy environment, but the new tech is helping to make things more manageable.”

Reimann added that tech such as AI and generative chatbots like Chat GPT are also helping venues to create content and push out information to their market base faster.

Without tech tools and capabilities like this, venues would go under – so while people state that tech is taking our jobs, the reality is that in the current environment it is helping to keep venues alive and save jobs.

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Key Principles of Small Business Automation

There are some fundamental principles that should guide any automation project.

Why Automate?

Your automation project should aim to accomplish the following goals:

• Allowing employees and customers to devote their time to high-value activities rather than repetitive, manual tasks.
• Improve internal and external process experience
• Assist in transforming your data into actionable information

Setting Expectations:

As with any project, it is critical to set realistic expectations for the possible outcomes. To begin, it is important to note what automation will not do for your business:

It will not do all of your work for you – Automation can help you and your team be more productive by removing manual, repetitive tasks from your plate. However, automation cannot do all of your work for you.
It will not replace you – Automation is not intended to replace you or your employees. It is about giving you and your team more time to work on more complex activities rather than simple, repetitive tasks.

Its not going to solve all your problems – Automation isn’t going to solve ALL your data and workload challenges – its not a silver bullet. It can make a measurable impact to help you and the team spend their time on activities that make a difference.

So what is automation going to do for my business?

Help automate logic-based workflows – Automation works great in “IF…THEN” scenarios. These are where you want something to happen when a specific event or trigger happens. (e.g. send an email when someone completes a form).

Free up resource time – Help automate repetitive tasks so that your team can focus on tasks that add greater value.

Help connect your data sets – Automation can help avoid having to duplicate data. It can also help you to share data with your other systems whilst maintaining a single source of truth.

How can I identify what activities I can automate?

To assist in identifying jobs that have a high potential for automation, we’ve devised a five-step approach. Initially focusing on immediate successes before creating more long-term value drivers. Over the course of a week, keep a log of your activities. Make a note of each of them and identify which of the “Quick Wins” categories it fits into.

Small Business Automation – Quick Wins

1. Data Duplication

The easiest to identify activities, where you are manually putting the same data from one place into another. Some examples of data duplication activities are:

Exporting data regularly from one system into a spreadsheet for analysis
Copying and pasting data from one system to another

2. Repetitive Tasks

Any task that repeats itself repeatedly or follows a set pattern is considered repetitive. Examples of such operations include:

Running the same reports each week from a system
Routinely sending the same email

3. Workflows based on logic

Although more difficult, there are probably a lot of tasks in this category that can be automated for your company. Logic-based workflows execute their activities in accordance with established logic. Consider whether you perform actions that can be translated into “IF -> THEN” sentences to help identify these. For instance:

IF someone signs up to our newsletter THEN send add their data to your CRM platform.

Some examples of logic-based workflows in businesses are:

• Manually sending an email out based on a certain trigger or event like end of month
• Updating information based on a trigger or event like a birthday
• Sending an automated invoice if payment has been taken successfully.
• Using the results of an automated maturity assessment to create a customised report.

Small Business Automation – Longer Term Value Drivers

Data vs Information?

What’s the difference between and data and information and why does it matter? Lets define the two:

Data – raw unorganised facts that need to be processed. Data can be something and seemingly random and useless until it’s organised.
Information – data that is processed, organised, structured or presented in a context that makes it useful.
Instead of data, your business wants information. You can make quicker, wiser, and more data-driven business decisions thanks to information. Here are a few examples of information that a company may utilise to assist in finding solutions to certain business challenges:

Can we afford to buy this new thing? Accounting software and your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software capture data on expenses, invoices and upcoming sales. When combined this data becomes information. Helping you understand your cash-flow situation and whether you can afford to buy this new thing
What customer segment should I focus on next? Data points such as sales by customer type, website engagement by audience, social media interaction and sales pipeline data can all become information when combined together . This helps you to understand your most profitable customer segments to focus on next.
Both examples involve data from many platforms organised into information. These are advanced areas of automation, but they deliver some of the biggest longer term value drivers.

4. Technology Landscape Map

Longer term value drivers from automation need you to look at the platforms and systems that you use across your organisation. Map out all the platforms that your business uses and what data is being captured and used in those platforms. Some probing questions to help with this are:

Do you know all the systems that you are storing and collecting data in?
Do you know what the data is collected for in each platform?
Are there opportunities to consolidate data into one place?
Your technology map will identify the source of truth for certain data and how you can use automation to make it visible elsewhere its needed.

5. Transform data into information

Strategically look across your business to assess whether you are capitalising on the information that you are gathering in your business. To help drive this level of activities consider the following questions:

Are you clear on the metrics that really matter for your organisation?
Do you know what data you need to be tracking for those metrics?
Start to build out a clear data strategy that turns your data into actionable information against those metrics. This will help you identify the automation requirements (and opportunities) to achieve this.

What can you use to achieve automation?
This process has resulted in a list of activities that will most likely add value by being automated. Unfortunately, there is no one size fits all way to automate these tasks. Automation can be accomplished from within the respective platforms, for example:

Email client rules for how to handle specific emails
Platform auto-scheduling reports
Pre-built integrations available within one of your existing platforms
You will most likely require workflow automation tools for logic-based workflows. The good news is that there are many on the market, with most offering generous free plans. In our organisation, we use a combination of the following platforms to help drive greater automation:

• Make (Formerly Integromat)
• Zapier
• Pabbly Connect

There are others on the market too and I’d encourage you to explore them. The key thing with these platforms is having a clear idea on what you want to automate before you start trying to use them.

Conclusion: Small business automation has never been easier to achieve, but knowing what to automate first is critical. Enabling automation is actually the easier part because you now know what you’re looking for. Take the time to identify and implement automation opportunities.

Automation is a powerful tool for running a healthy and efficient business. We understand that knowing how your business is doing outside of the numbers can be difficult. To assist, we developed a free Small Business Health Check.. It asks you a series of questions about your company and then provides you with a personalised report with your results and recommendations.

Source: SBAA

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After two years of building her business, she resigned from her IT day job to focus on providing IT consulting, support and training services for small businesses. The move to create her own business, Fraulein Tech, allowed Claudia to build relationships with other business owners as the person they turn to for IT advice and support.

“As a business owner, I really enjoy being in close contact with other business owners and their staff, knowing their needs, their challenges and helping them to run a successful business,” says Claudia.

Here are three of the key lessons Claudia has shared for anybody starting a small business.

Get help with your IT early

As an IT consultant, Claudia recommends getting professional help with the complexities of IT early in your business set up.

“Sort your IT early. It’s worth asking for advice as it’s often a case of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ and sometimes errors made at the start of the business can be costly later.”

Claudia advises it’s worth staying in charge of your access to your own systems.

“You should always know your login information to your domain host and your website, even if somebody is setting this up for you.”

“It’s also important to have a plan for your business around cyber security, backup protocols, password management, access control and other elements of IT.”

Be prepared for highs and lows

Claudia has learned to deal with the challenges of having an unpredictable workflow by understanding that this is typical in her industry.

“Sometimes it seems clients will all contact me at once or not at all. After set up, consulting, and training, my clients only need me if something goes seriously wrong or a new project appears.”

“Finding the first right client was a challenge – but after finding a good match, the rest was word of mouth and much easier.”

Connect with others for support

Claudia joined the SBDC Facebook group I’m a small business owner in Western Australia and has enjoyed connecting with others and learning more about different aspects of running a business.

“There’s no marketing, no spam, professional advice and it’s very well monitored. There’s a good sense of community, especially as it is all local business owners. I have even reviewed my insurance set up after reading about it in the group.”

This article is republished from the Small Business Development Corporation (SBDC) website. The SBDC is a WA State Government agency that supports small business. Please read the disclaimer before relying on this information, which has been developed primarily with Western Australian businesses in mind.

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“Small businesses are more reliant on digital trading platforms than ever before and during COVID-19 these platforms have provided many small businesses with their only shopfront,” Commissioner Chris Lamont said.

“Given the increasing reliance on these platforms, it is vital that they commit to a code of conduct to address the concerns of platform users, particularly where it involves conduct that could potentially be in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.’’

His comments were made in a submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Digital Platforms Inquiry.

The Commissioner said some digital platforms were becoming increasingly powerful and dominant market players arguably shared similarities with regulated infrastructure like telecommunications.

The Commission has received a number of complaints from small businesses about being unexpectedly locked out of a platform or having difficulty communicating with the platform to resolve issues, including:

• The suspension of a small business from Amazon after accidentally providing incorrect shipping numbers. This small business attempted to contact the digital platform in relation to the matter. While the business had rectified the error, they were unsuccessful in their attempt to get in contact with a representative to lift the suspension.
• A Facebook page publishing false reviews about a small business with Facebook refusing to take action on the basis that it hadn’t breached community standards.
• Uber drivers reporting being suddenly locked out of their account with no reason provided by the platform. These drivers may attempt to contact Uber to rectify the situation but in some situations are unable to.

“Without judging the merits of any individual suspension, the Commission is concerned that small businesses, in some cases, appear to experience difficulties having their cases reviewed,” Mr Lamont said.

The Commission envisages the code would apply to a broad range of online marketplaces, including for both goods and services. As part of the voluntary code, platforms would commit to provide mechanisms to resolve disputes, including between platform participants and with the platform itself.

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“Gaining a tech edge and learning new digital skills can be a game-changer for small businesses, and that’s exactly what this program provides,” said Minister for Small Business Jaala Pulford.

“We’re supporting investments in digital capability that might not otherwise be made, given the many other demands on cashflow in these extremely challenging times.”

The program provides $1,200 rebates so small businesses can access a range of digital business tools to make improvements to things like websites, online marketing tools, cash flow services, jobs and project management and stocktake systems.

The program has been extended to offer additional support to Victorian businesses during the current lockdown and beyond. As part of the program, software providers will give businesses access to product-specific support and training during the trial period.

Once the trial period has finished, businesses can then use one or more of the digital products listed as part of the program and apply for a rebate of up to $1,200, while continuing to receive product support and advice.

Software applications offered by Mr Yum, Square, Shopify, MYOB, XERO and Squarespace are some of the resources on offer as part of the program. Businesses will also be able to participate in free digital workshops offered through Small Business Victoria.

The first round of the program was launched in November 2020 and more than 8,000 successful applications were received.

Phoebe and Tim Simpson adopted Shopify for Hosea Store in Mornington with support from the Small Business Digital Adaptation Program. Shopify is helping the furniture and homewares business reach its target market and build a strong community.

Marky Gong has used the program to purchase and maintain a subscription to Xero for her Hawthorn cafe Alley Hens, providing important assistance with accounting, payroll and superannuation.

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Interestingly, Google My Business (GMB) is one of those tools that has slipped into the ‘too hard’ basket for many businesses, when it’s actually a ‘must have’ and kinda easy.

Google My Business explained

GMB is an integral part of local search. That means it’s how Google connects the keywords used by people searching for particular goods or services with the options available nearby. And by that I mean the experience we’ve all had – you search for pizza and Google knows you’re probably on the hunt for dinner from a nearby shop, so it doesn’t usually direct you to a popular spot in the next state or even across town.

Received wisdom is that almost half (46 pr cent) of all searches on Google have local intent – meaning they want to buy something or access information on something that’s local to them. That means the results you get will be dictated by where you are physically located when you do the search – you’ll get three results, nearby, in maps.

So how do you get on Google My Business?

To be eligible to show up in this map, your business needs a Google My Business Listing (GMB). The great news is, it’s free. Strictly speaking only businesses with physical premises and/or a service area business (SAB) can claim.  SAB are businesses like plumbers that may operate out of their own home but only service clients at the client’s home (so their own home address is actually irrelevant).

Listings need to be verified to show that the business actually does exist.  Usually this is done by receiving a postcard with a verification code from Google at your stated address.  Note, this process can be a royal pain in the posterior. I’ve heard of postcards taking months upon months to appear – particularly in the gloomy depths of Covid-19. But, take heart, it usually appears eventually, and is well worth the (sometimes lengthy) wait.

Optimise your listing

And don’t be intimidated by *yet another* login, listing or dashboard – it really is very simple. Most importantly, it’s a phenomenal – FREE – way to showcase your business. You don’t just get to pop up where your buyers are looking, but you can upload photos, share posts, people can ask questions, can even book appointments, find out your working hours and – critically – you can collate reviews from satisfied customers. Think of it as another social media platform, but potentially more powerful. If your target market doesn’t congregate on Facebook, Google reviews is a particularly important way to validate your offering, providing the social proof that you mightn’t otherwise be able to leverage. After all, who hasn’t popped on to check out online reviews before they commit to a purchase?

Optimising your GMB properly helps you appear in the maps section of Google’s results pages. However, to achieve that, your business’s GMB needs to be in the top 3 position for that keyword.

Things that help GMBs rank well

Not everything is within your control. Clearly, you need to be in close proximity to the searcher – that’s a given. However, there are some things you can do to maximise your presence. Most importantly, you need to ensure the information on your listing is complete, including your:

• Business description
• Service areas
• Categories
• Name and address details

After that, it’s important to ensure that all information about your business is consistent internet-wide, including your website, social media profiles and directories.

Improve your Google presence

So, today’s lesson is that if you haven’t already claimed your GMB listening, open a new tab and do it right away. Your homework is to –

• Login to your GMB
• Make sure your information is filled out correctly and matches your website exactly
• Get reviews from happy customers
• Add 10 images from your business
• Add posts as events, offers, updates and get your profile looking lively.

My parting advice? Become friends with Google – utilise its opportunities and play the game. Otherwise there’s some prime real estate there you’re missing out on.

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The boutique showcase of over fifty of Australia’s leading fintech (financial technology) companies and startups will be a live event welcoming thousands of fintech enthusiasts. Visitors are invited to engage with innovative and cutting-edge fintech products and services to elevate and scale their business, network and reach new markets. 

Visitors can register online for free tickets for the FINTECH21 Showcase, however, space is limited so booking in advance is encouraged.

Fintech is a future-thinking industry and its products and services can improve business operations across a range of activities, including import and export, e-commerce, digital currency, cybersecurity and data protection, payments, neo-bank loans, securing capital, reaching new markets, reducing transaction fees and automating accounting, HR and other services. 

Over thirty fintech business leaders and industry influencers will also be leading workshops, seminars and panel discussions during the event. These events and networking functions are separate from the FINTECH21 Showcase can be attended by purchasing a delegate ticket.

FINTECH21 Showcase and Seminar Sessions include:

• A free to attend expo with over forty fintech exhibitors 
• Workshops with industry experts
• Daily, informative seminars with fintech business leaders
• Panel Discussions with fintech companies, banks and startups 
• Networking Functions to forge meaningful relationships within the fintech community 

FINTECH21 will attract business owners, stakeholders, entrepreneurs, startups, government officials and C-level executives from across the country. 

FINTECH21 Showcase is a featured event of SmallBiz-Week. Learn more about Australia’s largest celebration of small business: SmallBiz-Week, and choose from ten events and functions that best suit each business’s unique needs. 

SmallBiz-Week’s ten events will take place simultaneously at Marvel Stadium, Docklands, Melbourne in both the Victory Room (ground floor) and the Medallion Club (first floor) from November 3rd to 5th, 2021.

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SBC Media sat down with Andrew Barker, Chief Marketing Officer of Qoin, a digital currency designed specifically for small business. Barker answers how small businesses can engage with the emerging digital currency market, and if it’s a beneficial payment avenue for them, how they can integrate digital currencies into their business model.

How can digital currencies help reduce transaction fees for small businesses?

With the absence of third-party intervention, digital currencies provide small businesses with a value proposition that means fewer fees.

Digital currencies often have charges of less than one per cent, and in fact, Qoin has zero fees, placing it well ahead of credit cards, which invariably charge between two-four per cent per transactions. In short, fewer transaction fees means more profit for the business owner.

What advice would you give SMBs that are nervous about receiving digital currency?

I would say, it is absolutely fair enough to be nervous about adopting any new idea or payment method into your business. There are two keys in my opinion as to assessing “new idea risk”.

Firstly, do the research on all fronts. More importantly, review the actual merchants that are using the system and what the pro’s and con’s from their perspective are. Secondly, slow integration is always better than the “all in” method.

Take a small percentage of your current turnover in an alternative currency, and then, if the outcomes work, increase the amount you can take. A quick final note on this is cost vs. outcome. With Qoin, there is zero cost to become a merchant and zero transaction costs, therefore, making Qoin a viable option to trial in your business.

How would a small business go about becoming a Qoin merchant?

Provided a small business has an active ABN and is prepared to accept Qoin for goods and services, businesses can simply download the Qoin app from the Apple or Google stores. Follow the steps to register the small business as a merchant within the Qoin ecosystem, and then be prepared to take on additional customers who will be paying with Qoin.

What is the ideal per cent of sales a small business should receive in digital currency?

It’s all about “managing” any business tool, so there are a number of factors to consider. Replacement cost of the product, business-related expense opportunities through Qoin etc. We do suggest that around 20% of the current cash turnover of a business is a manageable level but I think the key here is, talk to one of the 450 Qoin team members throughout Australia and NZ as to your specific business situation. Qoin is built on people and those people are there to educate and support our merchant community. Another difference Qoin offers to other currencies.

How do you see digital currency and small business interacting within the next 10 years?

The world is becoming more digitally focused every day and the future looks likely to incorporate more digital technology into the financial landscape. Australia is well on its way to becoming a cashless society, a feat which has been propelled forward by Covid-19. Research has suggested that in the space of ten years, cash has gone from being the most popular form of payment to only being used for about 25% of all transactions, a telling progression.

Andrew Barker, CMO, Qoin

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The Digital Economy Strategy proclaims

We are well placed to be a leading digital economy and have strong foundations, but many countries are investing heavily in their digital futures.

This may sound like a lot, but a closer look at the strategy and funding announcements, compared with what other countries are doing, shows we may not be so well placed after all.

The world picture

To see how Australia compares worldwide, we can look to the most comprehensive global analysis of the digital evolution of nations, the Digital Intelligence Index produced by researchers at Tufts University in the United States.

This index looks at many factors, such as digital payment and logistics infrastructure, internet usage, regulations and research, to give each country scores for the current state of its digital economy and also how fast the digital economy is developing.

In the 2020 edition, Australia ranked as the 17th digital economy in the world — behind Sweden, Taiwan, New Zealand, and the leading nation, Singapore. In 2017 Australia came 11th, so we are already dropping down the rankings.

Just to maintain our position, we need to improve at least as rapidly as those behind us. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has acknowledged this, noting “we must keep our foot on the digital accelerator to secure our economic recovery from COVID-19”.

However, the Digital Intelligence Index ranks Australia 88th of the 90 countries analysed when it comes to our speed of improvement. The only two countries slower than Australia are Hungary and Nigeria, and there are 87 digital economies developing faster than us.

Since 2017, countries such as Slovenia, Egypt, Greece and Pakistan, which used to grow more slowly, are moving faster, increasing the pressure from the back of the pack.

Denmark and Sweden, two countries ahead of us in the Digital Evolution ranking above, used to grow slower, giving us a chance to overtake them. Not anymore. They have now picked up speed, and are increasing the gap we need to cover even to catch up with them.

The right ideas, but not enough funding

The Digital Economy Strategy package, announced in the budget, covers a broad range of initiatives. They are grouped into eight priorities, covering education, support for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), cyber security, artificial intelligence (AI), drone technologies, data sharing, support of government services, and tax incentives.

It is promising to see government’s dedicated investment, particularly in securing future skills and building Australia’s AI capability. But it is concerning to see the spending on some priorities fails to reflect the importance of these topics.

The federal government recognised the need for upskilling Australians. According to the Australia’s Digital Pulse report compiled by Deloitte and the Australian Computing Society, we will need 60,000 new technology workers every year for the next five years, just to meet the growing demand. Yet only 7,000 students graduated with IT degrees in Australia in 2019.

The new budget will support graduate and cadet programs, including through additional funding assigned to AI. Unfortunately, the government’s new programs will barely put a dent in our projected skills shortage of about 50,000 workers annually. The new programs will provide scholarships for only up to 468 graduates over a six-year period.

Artificial intelligence is another key topic. AI is upturning industries globally, and creating opportunities for emerging and transforming businesses. The federal government allocated $124.2 million to this priority, distributed among initiatives lasting between four and six years.

Compare this with France, which has allocated €1.5 billion (A$2.3 billion) to AI initiatives running between 2018 and 2022. Given France’s economy is roughly twice the size of Australia’s, an equivalent commitment from Australia would be slightly over A$1 billion — almost 10 times the promised A$124.2 million.

Not enough funding for private enterprise

A huge chunk of the $1.2 billion promised in the budget will be spent on the Enhancing Government Services Delivery priority. Aside from two small expenses of $13.2 million, it consists of just two large initiatives.

The first will deliver an enhanced version of the government’s online service platform, myGov. The second is for digital health, funding My Health Record and Australian Digital Health Agency activities. Together, they will consume more than half of the entire Digital Economy Strategy budget.

This seems grossly unbalanced and skewed toward digital transformation of the public sector, rather than supporting Australia’s digital economy holistically.

Are we really keeping our foot on the digital accelerator, or just pretending to?

We need to do better

Australia’s budget spending on the Digital Economy Strategy for 2021-22 is planned to be just shy of $500 million (with the remainder of the announced $1.2 billion to be spent over the following five years). That’s less than 0.1% of Australia’s entire projected budget spending. How does it compare to leading digital economies?

In Singapore (the world’s top digital economy), a single initiative to support organisations in adopting digital solutions and technologies received S$1 billion (A$960 million) in funding this year. That’s just shy of 1% of Singapore’s entire budget in 2021. Again, the commitment is around ten times higher than Australia’s investment.

To stop sliding down the rankings, Australia needs to put its (our) money where its mouth is. Countries ahead of us (Singapore) and behind us (France) are investing ten times as much as we do in digital economy initiatives.

Are we really well placed to be a leading digital economy? Like so much in life, you get what you pay for.

Credit: The Conversation, by Marek Kowalkiewicz, Professor and Founding Director of QUT Centre for the Digital Economy, Queensland University of Technology

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As early as November last year, research by the Reserve Bank of Australia showed the temporary payment had already helped to reduce total job losses by at least 700,000.

Will the end of JobKeeper mean massive job losses?

As small businesses adjust to standing on their own feet without this government support, some economists are optimistic about their chances. Yet there remains significant cause for concern. Commentators estimate that as many as 150,000 workers are expected to lose their jobs as a result of the program ending.

The good news, however, is that “just because JobKeeper has come to an end does not mean the government’s support has,” according to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. One area where government support could produce a high return on investment for government and business alike is digitisation.

Why digital tech could be the answer

Australian small businesses have typically lagged with their implementation of technology. A recent survey from CPA Australia found that our small businesses were least likely to invest in digitisation in 2020, out of 11 countries surveyed. Australian small businesses have also struggled disproportionately with cash flow, making it harder yet to invest heavily in bringing in new digital processes.

So why is digitisation so important? The digitisation of key functions like finance can streamline processes for small business owners, freeing them up to focus on priorities like business growth. Critically, it can provide them with a more accurate and effective view of their business’ financial position. The more knowledge a business owner has of this, the more chance they have to succeed – it’s a big part of why Intuit developed Quickbooks Cash Flow Planner to put the power back into the hands of the small business owners and gain control over their cash flow.

Time for the government and tech sector to step up

As JobKeeper finishes up, software providers also need to be allies of the small business sector to assist them in moving towards digitisation. Several, including Intuit Quickbooks, have already started to do so through the Victorian state government’s Small Business Digital Adaptation Program, which offers a rebate of up to $1,200 for businesses that implement digital technologies. This is an excellent example of a scheme for others to replicate that rewards those that look to help themselves through digitisation.

As we enter the next phase of our pandemic recovery prioritising small business digitisation will be critical to ensuring they grow stronger and even more resilient.  Now’s the time for the government and the tech sector to step up and continue supporting our small business owners to digitally transform their processes and take these important steps to help themselves prepare for a prosperous future.

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