Businesses with 1 to 249 employees can access discounts worth up to £5,000 on approved Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and eCommerce software as part of an expansion of the Help to Grow: Digital programme.
The flagship scheme aims to support SMEs to increase their productivity by allowing businesses to access leading software at a discounted rate. Previously, only businesses with more than 5 employees were eligible for the scheme, but this has been expanded to the 760,000 UK microbusinesses with fewer than 5 colleagues.
It has also been announced that eCommerce software will be available through the scheme to help businesses ramp up sales of products and services online, offering an average of 7.5% to employee sales over three years.
Businesses can now access a £5,000 discount on 30 software solutions from 14 leading technology suppliers, including Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and digital accounting packages.
CRM software also offers an estimated 18% average boost to productivity by making it easier for sales and marketing teams to understand and communicate with customers.
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.
Business Minister Lord Callanan said:
“Boosting productivity isn’t some abstract concept to be sniffed at – for individual SMEs it means bigger sales and breaking into new markets. It can add £100 billion to the British economy overall, creating jobs and opportunity across the country.
“Adopting the latest technology is proven to help businesses make the most of their potential, and by making more than one million firms eligible for the scheme, we’re helping to level up the UK economy and bolster the ability of our businesses to compete with the best worldwide.”
Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury Alan Mak said:
“Extending our Help to Grow: Digital scheme will enable thousands more SMEs to become more innovative, more competitive, and more profitable.
“Helping them adopt new technology to support customers, manage accounts, and sell online will save them time and money. This will boost productivity and help create jobs and prosperity across the UK.”
Murray Lambell, Vice President and General Manager, eBay UK has welcomed the expansion of the programme to eCommerce software:
“This is extremely welcome news for a significant number of the 300,000 small businesses who use eBay every day to grow their business. Many of our commercial sellers are micro-businesses who are extremely entrepreneurial but inevitably time poor.
“Being able to purchase e-commerce and other productivity-enhancing software at a discount could really help give rocket boosters to what are already fast-growing businesses. And given that three quarters of our small businesses are based outside London and the South East, this also has the potential to boost the Government’s Levelling Up agenda.”
The Help to Grow: Digital sits alongside the Help to Grow: Management scheme which provides 50 hours of leadership and management training across 12 weeks for SME business leaders.
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