The Government has launched a nationwide review with a focus on encouraging businesses to take up new technologies, such as cloud accounting and e-purchasing.
The Business Productivity Review forms part of the Government’s Modern Industrial Strategy to increase productivity and business profits.
It says the review will help “better understand” the factors affecting the productivity of UK businesses in an effort to generate some £100 billion of “untapped benefit” for the economy.
It will look at how firms of all sizes can take advantage of technologies, new management practices and business support services, and assess why uptake of certain technologies has been so low.
The Government has a particular interest in encouraging the use of cloud accounting technology, given that it wants to transform the tax system into a completely digitised service sometime in the near future. The first stages of this plan, known as Making Tax Digital, are poised to go into effect from April 2019, after which date businesses earning more than the VAT threshold will be expected to report VAT digitally.
Business Secretary Greg Clark said: “For centuries Britain has been a nation of discoveries, but these ideas haven’t always been commercialised in the UK and new ideas applied in practice.
“Now our modern Industrial Strategy is ensuring that firms across the UK can take advantage of leading technologies and management practices, potentially adding £100 billion to the economy and boosting people’s earning power right across the country.”
