The government has expanded the Help to Grow: Digital Scheme to businesses with at least one employee, meaning up to 1.2 million businesses could now access discounts worth up to £5,000 on approved software.
The development will see the flagship government scheme that aims to boost productivity and growth of the UK’s small businesses tripling its reach.
With Customer Relationship Management software proven to boost firms’ productivity by 18 per cent on average, the Help to Grow: Digital scheme offers businesses discounts worth up to £5,000 on approved software.
Previously, only businesses with more than 5 employees were eligible for the scheme. From today, businesses with at least 1 employee are now eligible to benefit. This boosts the number of eligible businesses by 760,000 so that it now reaches up to 1.24 million.
The government has also announced that eCommerce software will now be available through the scheme to help businesses ramp up sales of products and services online. This includes helping them to manage their inventory, take payments and gather data and insights on customers’ needs.
This means businesses can now access a £5,000 discount on 30 software solutions from 14 leading technology suppliers for eCommerce, Digital Accounting and CRM software.
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.
“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,” Business Minister Lord Callanan said.
The Help to Grow: Digital sits alongside the Help to Grow: Management scheme as the government’s flagship programme to help small and medium-sized businesses to scale-up and grow. Help to Grow: Management offers business leaders 50 hours of leadership and management training across 12 weeks, with government covering 90 per cent of the costs involved.
Commenting, Martin McTague, national chair of the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said: “We are very pleased to have worked hard with BEIS to adopt our ask to expand the eligibility criteria of the Help to Grow: Digital scheme to support more small businesses getting the software they need.
“Our research shows the smallest firms are least likely to have adopted tech products because of the lack of resources although they would make the most productivity gains through adoption.
“It’s good that ministers are listening. Together with the addition of e-Commerce software and one-to-one advice for SMEs on technology adoption, this will help small businesses enhance their operations and drive efficiency and growth.
To qualify for the financial discount through Help to Grow: Digital, businesses can be from any business sector, but must meet all four of the following criteria:
- be a business based in the United Kingdom registered with Companies House or be a registered society on the Financial Conduct Authorities Mutuals Register
- have at least 1 employee who is not an owner, up to a maximum of 249 employees
- have been actively trading for over 12 months, and have an incorporation date of at least 365 days prior to application
- be purchasing the approved software for the first time
The approved technology suppliers on the Help to Grow: Digital online website are:
e-Commerce software
Shopwired; Gob2b; Kentico; Comgem; EKM; Big Commerce
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software
Capsule CRM; Zymplify; Livepoint Software Solutions Ltd; Gold-Vision CRM; Deskpro Ltd
Digital Accounting software
Sage; Intuit Ltd; Crunch
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