In a survey of over 250 business owners and managers throughout Ireland, 56% say that when it comes to IT, broadband is the biggest single challenge facing Irish SME’s. This is according to the findings of the nationwide survey carried out by Big Red Cloud, a supplier of online accounting software to the Irish SME market.

Ninety six percent of the business surveyed agree that businesses in rural Ireland are a huge competitive disadvantage due to poor quality broadband. What’s more, the survey looked at businesses in all areas of the country – not just rural – and of these 56% think that broadband is the single biggest challenge facing Irish SMEs.

Staff issues come second in IT-related challenges to SMEs (16%) and more than 1 in 10 of SME owners/managers think cyber-crime is the biggest problem for Irish SMEs.

The Big Red Cloud survey revealed that the majority of Irish SMEs feel there is definitely room and need for improvement when it comes to the online presence of their business. Twenty nine percent of these businesses are satisfied that their business requirements are met when it comes to online presence, and a further 60% recognise that more needs to be done.

But now, for a vast array of business sectors, the need to conduct at least some business online is growing, as evidenced by the fact that 75% of those surveyed responded that 10% or more of their business originates through their online presence. Furthermore, 17% of these SMEs say they get more than 30% of their business from online interactions.

Speaking of the findings, CEO of Big Red Cloud, Marc O Dwyer said, "Analysis of over 63m broadband speed tests worldwide revealed Ireland is 36th worldwide, with an average speed of 13.92Mbps. At the time small business representative bodies were critical of Ireland’s ranking and voiced concerns over the lack of infrastructure investment in the country and its effect on the business landscape. Our survey supports, and furthers, these sentiments."

Source: www.businessworld.ie