{"id":1304,"date":"2019-05-13T10:36:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T09:36:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/?p=1304"},"modified":"2019-05-13T10:47:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T09:47:29","slug":"broadband-productivity-and-the-welsh-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/broadband-productivity-and-the-welsh-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Broadband, productivity and the Welsh Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Digital technology is one way for Welsh businesses to respond to ongoing economic uncertainties; to become more productive through new ways of working, reaching customers and offering new services.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In our latest post, Dr Dylan Henderson gives us a flavour of the research findings from his work on digital technologies in Wales as the Welsh Economy Research Unit<\/a> prepares to launch its annual Economic Impact Report<\/a> on 22 May.<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For SMEs, adopting and using\ndigital technologies is central to business productivity. It offers a range of\napplications from ecommerce and social media to voice over internet telephony\nand cloud computing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And our research suggests that\nthis kind of tech is one way for Welsh businesses to respond to ongoing economic\nuncertainties; to become more productive through new ways of working, reaching\ncustomers and offering new services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To better understand these issues\nand the opportunity for greater SME digital technology use, Cardiff Business\nSchool\u2019s Welsh\nEconomy Research Unit<\/a> will be launching its annual Economic\nImpact Report<\/a> at the Regional Studies Association Wales and South West Section\nConference on Wednesday 22 May in the Park Plaza Hotel, Cardiff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report evidences\nthe positive effect of digital technologies and their potential impact on\nproductivity<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt shows that some \u00a3130m has been added to the Welsh economy in 2018, with just over 1,000 new jobs created as a result of digital technology adoption and use.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

At the conference, which will bring\ntogether practitioners from business and academia as well as government and\npolicy makers, we\u2019ll present our findings and discuss the opportunities for\ndigital technology use to address Wales\u2019 productivity challenge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filling in the gaps<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our survey<\/a>\nresearch on SMEs in Wales also reveals the benefits of digital technology use.\nGreater numbers are making use of an ever-wider range of cloud-based digital technologies\nby selling\/purchasing online and enjoying the benefits this brings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBusinesses that are actively exploiting these technologies and\nembedding them across their operational processes now account for 54% – more\nthan half – of SMEs in Wales.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

These developments, however, are\nnot evenly spread across Wales. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As expected, cities, with their greater\nproportion of high growth businesses, account for the largest share of\nbenefits. That said, recent improvements in superfast\nbroadband access and evidence of greater take-up<\/a>\nshow how positive trends in adoption across both rural and urban spaces in\nWales might aid in closing intra-regional\nproductivity gaps<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Wales\u2019 productivity\nchallenges remain stubbornly high, our research shows that roll-out and take up\nof digital technologies may provide the basis for improving the productivity of\nthe SME base through existing technologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good news is that Welsh\nGovernment, through pan-Wales programmes such as Superfast\nBusiness Wales<\/a>, are\nproviding help to those SMEs that are struggling to maximise the benefits of\nsuperfast broadband. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Businesses such as Lloyds Bank,\nGoogle and Amazon among others are also increasingly seeking to support SMEs.\nThis is leading to an ever-growing range of support that can be utilised by\nWelsh SMEs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Cardiff Business School, we too\nwill continue to monitor the adoption and use of digital technologies by SMEs\nin Wales, and report on the resulting impact on the productivity on SMEs,\nsectors and regions of the Welsh Economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Register\nnow<\/a> to join us at the Park Plaza Hotel on Wednesday 22 May and find\nout how digital technology can help your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr Dylan Henderson<\/strong><\/a> is Senior Research Fellow at the Welsh Economy Research Unit<\/a> in Cardiff Business School.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post was written in collaboration with <\/em>Laura Norris<\/em><\/a>, a Research Associate at Cardiff\nBusiness School and PhD student at Cardiff University\u2019s <\/em>School of Geography and Planning<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Digital technology is one way for Welsh businesses to respond to ongoing economic uncertainties; to become more productive through new ways of working, reaching customers and offering new services. In […]","protected":false},"author":1677,"featured_media":1306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[387],"tags":[102,658,557,9,28,100,809,807,808,115,156,163,372,812,811,98,109,16,395,111,154,397,398,171,394,47,810,44],"class_list":["post-1304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-economy","tag-academia","tag-amazon-2","tag-broadband","tag-business","tag-cardiff-business-school","tag-cardiff-university","tag-cloud-computing","tag-digital-technology","tag-ecommerce","tag-economy","tag-google","tag-internet","tag-jobs","tag-lloyds-bank","tag-park-plaza-hotel","tag-policymakers","tag-productivity","tag-research","tag-rural","tag-sme","tag-social-media","tag-superfast-broadband","tag-tech","tag-technology","tag-urban","tag-wales","tag-welsh-economy-research-unit","tag-welsh-government"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paOfaS-l2","meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/620\/2019\/05\/Broadband-wiring.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1313,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1304\/revisions\/1313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/business-school\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}