While virtually all of America’s 15,000 largest businesses are linked to the Internet, only a third of America’s small and mid-sized businesses have Internet connections, creating what the National Federation of Independent Businesses characterizes as the great “digital divide.”
In its small business growth agenda, a booklet published for the current congressional session, the NFIB discusses a number of areas, including the so-called digital divide.
Beyond Cash Donations: How New Forms of Giving Are Transforming Not-for-Profit Accounting
Evolving Funding Landscape for Not-for-Profits Not-for-profit organizations are being asked to do more with less,…
Learn More
“The digital divide is a term used to refer to the gap between the haves and have nots in today’s technology advancing society,” the NFIB said.
“The divide includes a gap between America’s largest and smallest firms,” the NFIB said. “Virtually all of America’s 15,000 largest businesses are linked to the Internet, versus less than one out of three of America’s small and mid-sized enterprises. In other words, big businesses are usually the ‘haves’ and many small businesses are the ‘have-nots.'”
The NFIB said that high-speed Internet access and electronic commerce will become increasingly important and available to small businesses, and suggested that the small-business community of the future will likely “be heavily populated by e-commerce and home/computer based businesses.”
The organization, which is among the most prominent voices for small businesses nationally, has developed a general “digital” policy agenda that calls for the elimination of economic and regulatory roadblocks that lead to the “digital divide;” to highlight the division between the “haves” and “have nots” in the commercial Internet arena, and publicly focus more attention on the competitive disadvantage small business is at today in a rapidly changing commercial climate.
Of particular concern, the organization said, is the lack of affordable high-speed Internet service in the rural and less densely populated areas of America. When high-speed connections do become available in less densely populated areas it is often not provided in a timely manner; and, as a result, small businesses in rural and less densely populated areas are at a competitive disadvantage with big business and competitors in metropolitan areas.
Here are some other observations from the NFIB relative to small business and the Internet:
- Small businesses that use the Internet have grown 46 percent faster than those that have not (from The Facts About Small Business: 2000, U.S. Small Business Administration).
- In 1998, more than one million small businesses had a Web site (from The Facts About Small Business: 2000, U.S. Small Business Administration).
- Eighty-five percent of small businesses are expected to conduct business via the Web by 2002 (from The Facts About Small Business: 2000, U.S. Small Business Administration).
- In 2000 small businesses in the U.S. were expected to generate 30 percent of their annual income online (from The Facts About Small Business: 2000, U.S. Small Business Administration).
- Major barrier to the adoption of e-commerce by small business is cost (from The Facts About Small Business: 2000, U.S. Small Business Administration).
- Small businesses mostly use the Internet for e-mail and research to find new customers (from The Facts About Small Business: 2000, U.S. Small Business Administration).
- Business to business e-commerce will increase annually at a rate of 41 percent over the next five years and account for nearly 24 percent of all business to business commerce by 2003 (SBA e-commerce report).
- Twenty-four percent of (all) businesses sold products online in 1998. It was estimated that by 2000, some 56 percent of (all) businesses would be selling their products online.
