Photo credit; Blaise Alleyne on Flickr
The New Zealand economy would get an estimated $34 billion efficiency and productivity boost  if all businesses were using the internet to its full potential, according to the “Value of Internet Services to New Zealand Businesses” report.
Currently, New Zealand’s economy is worth around $210 billion of output annually.
The report, issued March 31 and funded by Internet NZ and Google, says firms using the internet well are between 6 and 11% more productive than their competitors in the same field. Best practice users were as much as 73% more productive than average businesses in their industry.
The research was conducted by the economic research consultancy Sapere and used data from 5,589 businesses in the Statistics New Zealand Business Operations Survey. It excluded firms in the information technology sector, which were presumed to be high internet users and interviews with 76 businesses were conducted in the tourism, retail, dairy/agriculture, and professional services sectors.
The report says while internet speed and connectivity were once the major issue, that is no longer so. The use to which the internet is put is the larger issue for most firms.
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Tags: business, Google, Internet NZ, New Zealand, online
