businessinfomag.uk magazine BULLETIN 06 UK plc misses out on £111 million tech boost If all British-based firms had increased their digital technology usage in 2021, the economy could have enjoyed a £111 billion boost in turnover by 2023, creating 676,000 new jobs, including over 313,000 in small and medium-sized companies. So say Virgin Media O2 Business and Cebr in their new report The economic and social benefits of digitalisation. According to their analysis, digital leaders – organisations that are actively investing in digital solutions and have a strong digital culture – achieved 12% turnover growth in the period, compared to just 5% for the 75% of UK organisations that have not significantly increased their digital usage since 2021. On average, they also had more than double the productivity growth. These gains contributed to an 8% rise in Gross Value Added (GVA) for digital leaders, versus zero growth for ‘digital followers’. In addition, 81% of businesses that have a strong digital culture and embrace tools to boost performance feel their workforce is well-prepared for the future, compared to 43% of those with weaker digital cultures. So what makes a digital leader? According to the report, it is not enough just to invest in digital tools; you also need to create a strong digital culture and integrate those tools into working practices and processes to support collaboration and knowledge-sharing. Jo Bertram, Managing Director of Virgin Media O2 Business, said: “There’s a £111bn boost to the UK economy to be unlocked for those organisations that build strong digital cultures, where technology underpins the way people connect and collaborate with colleagues and customers to drive business outcomes.” https://www. virginmediao2business.co.uk/ digital-culture/ … Supermarket vouchers are most used perk Supermarket vouchers are this year’s most valued workplace perk, according to Rippl, the employee recognition, rewards and benefits platform. Its analysis of workplace benefit data for more than 145,000 workers found that 98% of employees with access to supermarket discounts use them to supplement their weekly shopping, saving an average of £725 per annum. With Salary Advances second on Rippl’s list of most valued perks, the cost of living crisis is clearly shaping the choices and preference of UK workers. Only 23% of employers offer this perk, but where it was available an average of 78% of employees took advantage of it. The third and fourth most used perks, Dental and Eye Tests, speak to the pressure on NHS services and the difficulty of getting an appointment, with six out of 10 employees turning to their workplace benefits for private healthcare support. In contrast to these widely used perks, gym membership is taken up by only 8% of employees, despite being offered by 76% of employers. Chris Brown, CEO at Rippl, said: “It is clear that the most valued workplace perks are those that meaningfully support employees in their everyday life, particularly when it comes to easing the burden of essential expenses and the cost of living. Retail and lifestyle discounts are an easily accessible benefit for employees that can help with everyday expenses such as weekly food shops, meals out or family cinema trips. For employers, it’s a simple way to financially support employees in lieu of significant pay rises.” www.rippl.work A glimpse of the future? The Natural History Museum is partnering with Microsoft and SAOLA Studio in a new immersive, mixed reality experience that transports visitors wearing Microsoft HoloLens 2 mixed reality headsets 100 years into the future to see how the natural world has responded to the actions we take today. Visions of Nature, part of the Museum’s advocacy program, Fixing Our Broken Planet, imagines how species might adapt to the threats they face in the 21st century, in a range of environments from the Scottish Highlands to the Great Green Wall in Africa’s Sahel region. Species chosen from the Museum’s 80 million physical specimens, including a cuttlefish, Darwin’s frog and coconut crab, come to life as interactive holographic animations, while a builtin scientific copilot, Hope, describes their development from 2025 to 2125. Natural History Museum Director of Public Programmes Dr Alex Burch said: “Visions of Nature is an incredibly exciting, immersive experience – and the first offering of its kind for the Museum. It presses fast-forward so visitors can see how nature has responded, for better and for worse, to the aftermath of centuries of human industrial activity as well as to the interventions we have introduced to remedy our unsustainable activity.” Tickets are available now at nhm.ac.uk/visionsofnature Jo Bertram Local councils under-prepared for cyber breach Local councils across the UK are woefully under-prepared for a cybersecurity breach, warns Apricorn. The manufacturer of software-free, hardware-encrypted USB drives issued its alert after just two out of 41 local councils confirmed they had cyber insurance in response to Apricorn’s Freedom of Information requests. Two more said they were planning to invest in it next year. In a separate Apricorn survey, 78% of IT security decision-makers in the private sector said they had cyber insurance in place, even if only 28% were confident of cover in the event of a breach. Almost half (46%) cited data backups as an essential tool to meet cyber insurance compliance requirements, up from 28% in 2023. Others include employee awareness training (43%); password hygiene (41%); encrypted storage on the move (39%) and at rest (35%); access controls (36%); and regular patch updates (35%). www.apricorn.com Top 5 Most Valued Perks: 1 Retail vouchers 2 Salary advance 3 Dental 4 Eye Tests 5 Charity donations continued... continued...
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