This article was first published in January 2019, and has been updated for 2020.
In an age when even your nan is likely to have a smartphone and post memes on Facebook, it's amazing to think that there are businesses out there which still aren't online in any meaningful sense.
Under current circumstances, with social distancing measures preventing the usual operation of most brick-and-mortar shops, the need for a digital presence has become even more acute - but the drive to get more businesses online is nothing new.
The Office for National Statistics published its annual report into e-commerce and ICT use among UK firms in November last year, revealing that in 2018 a startling 52% of businesses in the UK had no website, and even among those with 10 or more employees the number remained as high as 16%.
What's more, only 12.9% of UK businesses made sales through a website. More than half of larger businesses (those with 1,000 or more employees) did not make sales via their websites.
The Government is keen to push the reluctant rump into the 21st century. In its 2017 UK Digital Strategy the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) stated that 'there are four core digital activities that we believe most businesses need to do: maintain a web presence, sell online, use the cloud, [and] digitise back-office functions such as payroll.'
As well as a series of industry-specific support schemes, such as Digital Built Britain which targets the construction industry, this drive manifests in a series of 'nudges' across a range of policy areas, each contributing to an overall change in the culture.
Making Tax Digital is perhaps the highest profile example. Announced in 2015, it is a strategy intended to compel firms not already keeping digital records and completing their tax returns online to start doing so.
Another nudge came in the form of a ban on a surcharge for card payments in 2018, prompted by an EU directive but passed as a Brexit-proof UK law. Though this might seem counterintuitive - doesn't this punish businesses for taking electronic payments? - the idea here was surely to normalise cashless payments.
It is partly, to put it bluntly, about surveillance. It will be easier for HMRC to observe and identify suspicious behaviour when every transaction, every payment, the movement of every pound and penny, is recorded digitally. It already monitors transactions on auction and car trading websites - for example, cross-referencing that data with DVLA registrations.
Less cynically, there is also a desire to keep British business, and thus Britain as a whole, competitive. When it's so easy for consumers to order direct from manufacturers anywhere in the world, to commission remote workers, or to buy via multinational online retailers based offshore, homegrown businesses need every advantage they can get.
Referring back to that 2017 digital strategy, DCMS said that SMEs with a 'strong web presence on average grow more than twice as quickly as those with minimal or no presence, export twice as much, and create twice as many jobs'.
There is also the expense and risk associated with the manufacturing, storage and movement of paper money. Banknotes cost a lot to print, especially given the measures necessary to stay ahead in the arms race with counterfeiters. Once they are printed, they're a constant security risk, being a target for theft, whether it's by the vanload or one at a time from open till drawers.
And anyone who has ever worked in retail will know the anxiety that comes with getting money from the premises to the bank after a busy day's trading. Do you send someone out into the night with a sack of cash, taking a different route each time to avoid being observed? Or leave it on the premises until morning and hope nobody breaks in during the small hours?
The same goes for paperwork. Handling a paper tax return within government requires an entire infrastructure for receipt and distribution - an army of drivers and vans; depots and delivery workers; scanners and data entry staff.
The cost of handling paper also motivates banks and other service providers to join the chorus nagging reluctant business customers to get online.
In exchange for supposedly greater convenience - on-demand reporting, instant transfers, and fewer letters cluttering up reception - they save a fortune on printing, postage and processing. (All served up, of course, with a garnish of environmental friendliness.)
For example, high-profile e-commerce data breaches, such as the Dixons Carphone incident in the summer of 2017, have created an air of anxiety around online business. If household names with dedicated IT security teams cannot keep customer data secure, what hope is there for SMEs operating on a budget?
Some would also argue that maintaining an online presence in other ways - with a social media page or a Google My Business listing, for example - is enough to give potential customers the information they're looking for.
But as the Government introduces ever more modernising initiatives, for most small businesses, having to adjust to digital systems will simply be unavoidable.
In an age when even your nan is likely to have a smartphone and post memes on Facebook, it's amazing to think that there are businesses out there which still aren't online in any meaningful sense.
Under current circumstances, with social distancing measures preventing the usual operation of most brick-and-mortar shops, the need for a digital presence has become even more acute - but the drive to get more businesses online is nothing new.
The Office for National Statistics published its annual report into e-commerce and ICT use among UK firms in November last year, revealing that in 2018 a startling 52% of businesses in the UK had no website, and even among those with 10 or more employees the number remained as high as 16%.
What's more, only 12.9% of UK businesses made sales through a website. More than half of larger businesses (those with 1,000 or more employees) did not make sales via their websites.
The Government is keen to push the reluctant rump into the 21st century. In its 2017 UK Digital Strategy the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) stated that 'there are four core digital activities that we believe most businesses need to do: maintain a web presence, sell online, use the cloud, [and] digitise back-office functions such as payroll.'
As well as a series of industry-specific support schemes, such as Digital Built Britain which targets the construction industry, this drive manifests in a series of 'nudges' across a range of policy areas, each contributing to an overall change in the culture.
Making Tax Digital is perhaps the highest profile example. Announced in 2015, it is a strategy intended to compel firms not already keeping digital records and completing their tax returns online to start doing so.
Another nudge came in the form of a ban on a surcharge for card payments in 2018, prompted by an EU directive but passed as a Brexit-proof UK law. Though this might seem counterintuitive - doesn't this punish businesses for taking electronic payments? - the idea here was surely to normalise cashless payments.
But why?
Why does the Government care whether AAA Aardvark Window Cleaning Services of Andover is online or not?It is partly, to put it bluntly, about surveillance. It will be easier for HMRC to observe and identify suspicious behaviour when every transaction, every payment, the movement of every pound and penny, is recorded digitally. It already monitors transactions on auction and car trading websites - for example, cross-referencing that data with DVLA registrations.
Less cynically, there is also a desire to keep British business, and thus Britain as a whole, competitive. When it's so easy for consumers to order direct from manufacturers anywhere in the world, to commission remote workers, or to buy via multinational online retailers based offshore, homegrown businesses need every advantage they can get.
Referring back to that 2017 digital strategy, DCMS said that SMEs with a 'strong web presence on average grow more than twice as quickly as those with minimal or no presence, export twice as much, and create twice as many jobs'.
There is also the expense and risk associated with the manufacturing, storage and movement of paper money. Banknotes cost a lot to print, especially given the measures necessary to stay ahead in the arms race with counterfeiters. Once they are printed, they're a constant security risk, being a target for theft, whether it's by the vanload or one at a time from open till drawers.
And anyone who has ever worked in retail will know the anxiety that comes with getting money from the premises to the bank after a busy day's trading. Do you send someone out into the night with a sack of cash, taking a different route each time to avoid being observed? Or leave it on the premises until morning and hope nobody breaks in during the small hours?
The same goes for paperwork. Handling a paper tax return within government requires an entire infrastructure for receipt and distribution - an army of drivers and vans; depots and delivery workers; scanners and data entry staff.
The cost of handling paper also motivates banks and other service providers to join the chorus nagging reluctant business customers to get online.
In exchange for supposedly greater convenience - on-demand reporting, instant transfers, and fewer letters cluttering up reception - they save a fortune on printing, postage and processing. (All served up, of course, with a garnish of environmental friendliness.)
Resistance is futile
Apart from a rebellious instinct against being 'nudged' there are various reasons businesses might resist the push to digital.For example, high-profile e-commerce data breaches, such as the Dixons Carphone incident in the summer of 2017, have created an air of anxiety around online business. If household names with dedicated IT security teams cannot keep customer data secure, what hope is there for SMEs operating on a budget?
Some would also argue that maintaining an online presence in other ways - with a social media page or a Google My Business listing, for example - is enough to give potential customers the information they're looking for.
But as the Government introduces ever more modernising initiatives, for most small businesses, having to adjust to digital systems will simply be unavoidable.
