A regional study of Britain’s online business activity,
commissioned by British Telecommunications, has found that internet
business opportunities have been poorly exploited in Scotland.
The study, carried out by the House of Allander Institute, shows
that e-commerce accounts for 3% of turnover for a third of the 258
companies surveyed and 1.2% of service sector jobs. When these
figures are compared to the results of a survey carried out with
identical criteria in the US it shows that development of the
internet in Scotland has been poor. However, it is not all doom and
gloom for internet business in Scotland.
The report states that the internet directly supports over
12,500 jobs in Scotland and online commerce is worth £1.52bn to its
economy. Also encouraging is the recent news that the development
agency, Scottish Enterprise, is to invest £6m towards cutting
high-bandwidth telecommunications access costs for Scottish
Businesses, which are around 70% higher than in London.
