THE taxation and legal systems and costs of training staff are major stumbling blocks for small and medium size busi-nesses wanting to take on new technology and innovations.
More than 62 per cent of small and medium size businesses surveyed in a Yellow Pages special report said they believed they were innovative, with a high proportion introducing new product, pro-cesses, service and business innovation in the previous finan-cial year.
However, the IT industry is leading the charge, far outstripping the rest of the business world in their commitment to new innov-ations in their businesses.
The report said 34 per cent of the small businesses surveyed bel-ieved innovation was vital to Australia’s wealth creation.
However, despite the govern-ment offering financial assistance only 4 per cent of the companies surveyed had managed to access funds from the government for innovative strategy.
Yet 18 per cent indicated that financial support was what they needed to adopt innovations in their company.
Of those that introduced new innovations, 87 per cent said they used their own internal funds.
Commenting on the results, Mr Andrew Day, CEO of Pacific Access, the company that commissioned the report, said the findings indicated a healthy level of innovation in small and medium size companies but said he believed there was still a way to go to get across-the-board innovation in business.
“These results certainly indicate the Federal Government’s efforts to raise awareness of the value of innovation has been successful within small and medium size companies,” he said.
“In fact, awareness of the importance of innovation and the level of optimism among small business clearly rose after the government released its Innova-tion Statement in January, com-pared to surveys completed before that date.”
