One of the key learnings we here at the Forum have taken from the Pandemic is that it was a tipping point for many businesses in terms of their interaction with the digital world and government also seems to have increased their use and reliance on it.

This means that many businesses who didn’t have a website, and there were lots, now have one, those that did took the time to improve the existing one.

Most realized that a website is a static thing and they needed to engage in social media to drive people to the website, so there has been an increase in the use of the various social media platforms. Many of our small business members started to trade online during the pandemic, so local businesses particularly in the food and drink sector added resources so they could do home deliveries and had to add a payment option to their processes. Two other areas we saw a lot of growth in were the need for a production of short video content for use on websites and other digital platforms and local providers who can do this have seen their businesses boom, the other is more obvious and that’s the use of tools like TEAMs and Zoom which we are all using far more than we used to.

Government and their various departments are using TEAMs far more than they used to and this means the need to attend meetings in Westminster has reduced dramatically which is of great benefit to those businesses and associations which aren’t London based.

Moving the conversation a little wider, we are all expected to use digital tools in our everyday life more often if you want to book a doctor’s appointment or with the optician you are asked to do it online, you can’t book a blood test in Cheshire over the phone any more it has to be online. You couldn’t put an incident report into the police recently at a police station or on the phone, you had to do it online, Local tax offices have closed and it’s all going digital and in my local town where there used to be 6 banks there is now one and that has just announced it’s closing down later this year. I also saw the recent reports in the paper that said all parking meters will no longer accept cash and you will have to use one of the many apps to make a payment.

There is also a separate challenge that faces a great many of our small and micro businesses based in the UKs rural communities, connectivity. If you don’t have good strong digital connectivity, you have an issue that many similar businesses in towns and cities do not face. The rural service network made clear at the recent National Rural Services conference that, “No person/business should be disadvantaged because of where they are located”, at a time where there is lots of innovation particularly in the food a drink sector with lots of micro business start-ups they need to be supported in terms or digital connectivity so that these businesses can thrive and grow.

So, this shift in the use of technology can’t be avoided but it does highlight an issue that there are a number of people who for whatever reason genuinely struggle to use digital tools and engage online and these people are in danger of being left behind and neglected if we don’t support them through these changes. We all need to remember that technology wasn’t supposed to replace service it was supposed to enhance it and there is always the temptation to introduce technology to reduce costs or for other reasons rather than providing the best possible service to customers and users.

So while we can’t turn back the introduction of technology, we can be sensitive to the issues some people face in moving into this digital world, we need to help them make the change, keep service levels high and make gradual changes taking everyone with us, if we are going to build strong customer focused businesses that thrive in this new digital world.