Small businesses to stick with new digital tools into the future

Now that we are well into 2021, reports have started being published regarding the affect 2020 took on small businesses and the changes they made. According to SCORE, a nonprofit which works with the U.S. Small Business Administration, 90% of small businesses digitized their businesses last year. With the help of additional software, “92% of small business owners converted to digital team collaboration.” That is a huge number, spurred by the popularity of browser-based collaboration platforms even before last March.

The Connected Commerce Council, along with Google, released a separate report entitled “Digitally Empowered: How digital tools power small businesses,” which states that 76% of their respondents said that they are “relying more on digital tools to run their business.”

Digging deeper, SCORE notes that “40% of small business owners adopted project management software for permanent use.” Have you been using video services like GoToMeeting or Zoom? Well, you might be surprised to find that only 39% of businesses surveyed plan to permanently use video conferencing software in the future. Despite this, “92% of small businesses converted to virtual meetings.”

Another huge number, this time for retail businesses -- according to SCORE, “95% of small business owners adopted online checkout,” while “93% adopted contactless delivery/pickup.”

So how did that affect productivity? According to SCORE, 47% of respondents saw increased productivity, with 45% showing increased sales and 42% reporting reduced costs.

Digitally Empowered states that 31% of their respondents said that without the digital tools adopted over the past year, they likely would have had to close.

Their report also shows that 74% of small business owners expect that their business will return to normal within six months.