INTERNET
Teleworking on the rise among Irish SMEs
08-03-2006
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Almost one-third of owner managers and senior executives in Irish SMEs work from home at least one day per month, but still find it hard to get broadband.
These were the key findings from a new survey carried out by TNS MRBI, which also found that 37 percent of telecommuters do so in order to increase productivity and avoid the day-to-day interruptions experienced in the office. Twenty-seven percent telecommute because it's convenient and 14 percent say that it provides a better balance between their careers and their home life. Eleven percent telecommute to avoid traffic, an increase of 4 percent since last year.
E-mail is the favourite business application among SMEs with 57 percent of those surveyed in the MRBI survey saying they used e-mail. Almost half of these are able to access their e-mail from outside of the office.
Forty-one percent check their e-mail from a home PC, one-third from a mobile laptop and 21 percent from an internet cafe. Eight percent use a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) such as a BlackBerry in order to check their e-mail.
The third annual survey, which is commissioned by mobile operator O2, found that there has been a slight improvement in the use of broadband, with one-third of those surveyed saying that they have broadband access from home, up from 23 percent in 2005. However, 50 percent of those who enquired about broadband found that it was not available.
"If broadband is available to 70 percent, then it must be in the wrong places," said Damien Mulley, chairman of Ireland Offline, speaking to ElectricNews.Net. "If you compare telecommuting in Ireland to other countries, it simply isn't working here yet."
The survey has been released the day after a broadband progress report was published by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. The report said in the last two years progress in broadband development has been "almost non-existent."
The committee also accused the Government of not implementing the recommendations made by the committee in its second report published in March 2004, claiming that the progress since then was negligible.
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