Digital savvy the key to success

New Zealanders are lagging behind in digital use in their businesses and need to change this or risk being left behind, says Hunter Powell Investment Partners director Tenby Powell.Around 97 per cent of all businesses in New Zealand are small to medium enterprises (SMEs), equating to around 456,000. The SME sector employs around 580,000 Kiwis and generates around 29 per cent of New Zealand's GDP.Powell said that although these businesses were concerned about staying relevant in a rapidly changing market, they often did not take the necessary steps to make sure this happened."We know that around eight out of 10 small-business owners worry about customer retention and a lot of SME owners say keeping up with marketing trends is a huge concern, and yet they don't recognise digital as being something they should do by way of marketing or maintaining customer relationships," Powell said."So we have a real problem in New Zealand, but we also know that those digitally capable SMEs are more likely to grow their businesses and employ more staff," he said."This changing market is no different to the revolution that saw people get off the horse and cart and get into a car driven by an internal combustion engine. It is exactly the same."Powell said although New Zealanders were fast adopters of new technology personally, they were not as good at uptake when it came to their business - something he said needed to change.One example was in the real estate industry, with a study from an Australian agency showing advertisements that had an embedded video received more than 400 per cent more interest than those that didn't."If you get so many more views from inputting a video into a real estate listing, why would you not do that every single time," Powell said. "There needs to be a recognition about the importance of technology, not just for business growth but for the whole issue of business sophistication - the more sophisticated a business can present itself, the more likely it's going to be able to grow."- NZ Herald