Survey reveals IT “amateurishness” in UK small businesses

OXFORD, U.K. - March 3, 2014 - PRLog -- Despite claiming that IT is an essential and continuous business investment, only 3% of UK small companies have a firm budget for IT, with most spending money on computing only when they have to – and even then it’s as little as possible. This was the major finding of a survey into small businesses’ attitudes towards IT conducted by Oxford-based IT support company (http://www.firstline-it.com) First Line Support Ltd.

The survey, conducted amongst 200 small business owners in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, revealed significant differences between what people say and what they do when it comes to IT management

45% of respondents said that IT was ‘an essential and continuous investment in our business’, although only 3% had a firm budget for IT.

78% believed that they had all the knowledge they needed to make key IT decisions for the businesses. However, how they got that knowledge was interesting: 8% have an external IT support company; 10% have an employee who knows about IT – and 56% just search online when they need information.

“The survey responses paint a rather depressing picture of business IT amateurishness across the country,” said Barrie Giles, owner of First Line Support. “I can sympathise with the 18% of respondents who said that they weren’t personally interested in IT but they knew it was important for the business. But, given the potentially disastrous impact of a server crash, or simply the number of hours that can be wasted by slow systems, I can’t understand why so many small businesses seem to have such a cavalier attitude towards their IT. Just like Marketing or Recruitment, IT is something that you have to plan and set aside a suitable budget for.”

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   More details about the survey responses can be found at: http://www.firstline-it.com/blog/2014/01/attitudes-among-uk-small-business-owners/