Seven billion good reasons for UK SMEs to work smarter

As well as putting a figure on the cost of the ‘winter freeze’ to small businesses, recent research from the Bank of Scotland has backed THUS’s case for remote and flexible working solutions.

With nearly seven in ten small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) feeling the financial impact and more than a third experiencing closure of premises for at least one day, the business case for flexible working solutions comes into focus.

A smarter working solution, which lets your people work from different locations, is now affordable even for the smaller business – it’s simply a question of taking advantage of the technology to find the right services for you.

With the application of the right technology, the right connectivity and the right service, the need for employees to be in the office, to be fully contributing to the business is very much a thing of the past. Home and flexible working increases staff productivity and delivers efficiency savings generally. Staff are able to respond faster to customers and can continue to do their jobs away from their usual office. So, in the face of poor weather or transport problems smarter working’s impact on productivity, employee satisfaction and customer experience – and, by extension, revenue – is clear.

With the overall cost of the harsh winter to UK SMEs estimated to be more than £7bn, according to the research, perhaps the question should not be can we afford to, more can we afford not to?