Statistics



 
Today, one of the major issues confronting the small office/home office (SOHO) business owner is making best use of the World Wide Web.  Some are just getting started on the Web, while many others recognize they are underutilizing it.  However, an increasing number see the potential to increase revenues and cut costs.  They also know that if they don't take the Internet seriously, their competitors will.  In today's business climate, marrying bricks to clicks is crucial.
 
Need proof?  Consider these eye-opening statistics:
 
  • In a recent prediction made by Peter Drucker, more than 50 percent of the working persons in America will be self-employed by the year 2010.
 
  • As many as 85% of small businesses will be conducting their business over the Internet by the end of the year, through either business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.
 
  • Small businesses generated $33.1 billion in business-to-consumer e-commerce sales last year, a figure expected to grow by 85 percent to more than $61 billion next year. Though small-business B2B e-commerce has started off slower, its rate of growth is expected to balloon even more rapidly than B2C in the years ahead, according to the SBA.
 
  • Half of all small and mid-sized businesses in the United States view the Internet as their most favored growth strategy over the next 12 months, up from 33% a year ago, according to Anderson Consulting.
 
  • About 48% of all U.S. small businesses (100 employees or less) now have web sites or home pages, up from 28% just two years ago, according to Dun & Bradstreet. That's an annual growth rate of better than 30%.
 
  • Six out of 10 small businesses expect to have at least some of their employees online this year, according to International Data Corp.  Of those, 60% also either have a home page or a web site, but only about one-third now sell goods online.
 
  • A recent National Federation of Independent Business poll revealed that 58% of small -business owners found their web sites stimulated sales in their real-world stores.
 
  • In a study of more than 3,100 U.S. workplaces the National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workplace found that on average, a 10% increase in workforce education level led to an 8.6% gain in total productivity. On the other hand, a 10% increase in new equipment expenditures only increased productivity 3.4%. Moreover, studies of learning environments indicate that interactive multimedia-based training can reduce training time up to 31% while increasing performance by up to 25%.
 
 
Now is the time to integrate web-based and real-world channels!