Fast broadband helps UK businesses to fight recession

According to the latest survey conducted by BT Business, the companies which used new technologies fared well during the recession.

The survey conducted on 7,200 businesses found that 69 % of the business firms were benefited by technology adoption and showed better than average performance even when their performance was hit by economic slowdown.

More than half the companies (61 %) said that reliable, fast broadband services had a key impact on their businesses.

In contrast, the businesses that failed to take advantage of technology saw their performance hit by recession and 34% of them had worse performance than the average company.

The study also revealed that smaller companies were quicker and more advantageous, when it comes to technology adoption.

Use of technology like broadband or wireless internet technologies helped the firms to save money, while it helped the employees to work more flexibly.

Around 30 % of the businesses said they could save money, while more than one-fourths said they could acquire more customers using internet and other tools.

Mick Hegarty, strategy director at BT Business said:

“More than ever technology has a critical role to play in the future success of these businesses, helping them to find new customers, market themselves more effectively and reduce costs,”

New social marketing strategies using support forums, twitter and blogs were also found to be growing faster as almost 20 % of the businesses use these tools to stay in touch with their customers.