{"id":10608,"date":"2015-12-04T10:15:59","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T10:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredcloud.com\/?p=10608"},"modified":"2022-03-24T12:52:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-24T12:52:40","slug":"2016-marks-arrival-of-eu-digital-single-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigredcloud.com\/en\/2016-marks-arrival-of-eu-digital-single-market\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 marks arrival of \u20ac415bn EU Digital Single Market"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interesting that\u00a02016 marks the arrival of EU Digital Single Market, yet aside from a feature in today’s Irish Examiner<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0Irish firms may miss \u20ac415bn EU Digital Single Market there has been little news on this apparently incredible business opportunity.<\/p>\n

Also seeing as it’s an European Commission initiative there has been little or no mobilisation on the part of our elected officials.<\/p>\n

Silicon Republic<\/a> wrote a piece back in July to explain exactly what the Digital Single Market is but at 76 shares, even Silicon Republic would admit, by their standards, this was not a big news item.<\/p>\n

What’s even more interesting is that in the Ricoh Ireland study reported in the Irish Examiner, over 50% of those businesses surveyed had never heard of the\u00a0Digital Single Market initiative.<\/p>\n

What gives? How could an opportunity seemingly worth \u20ac415bn not be of interest?<\/p>\n

The key driver behind the Digital Single Market initiative is to facilitate favourable conditions for economic growth which in turn will create employment across the EU.\u00a0The European Commission has calculated that the Digital Single Market could could contribute \u20ac415bn per year to the European economy and potentially create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.<\/p>\n

Presented as a Commission priority, the Digital Single Market tagline pretty much captures the essence of the initiative, ‘Bringing down barriers to unlock online opportunities.’ \u00a0This digital initiative strategy is made up of three policy areas or ‘pillars’<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0Better online access to digital goods and services<\/a><\/p>\n

Helping to make the EU’s digital world a seamless and level marketplace to buy and sell.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0An environment where digital networks and services can prosper<\/a><\/p>\n

Designing rules which match the pace of technology and support infrastructure development.<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0Digital as a driver for growth<\/a><\/p>\n

Ensuring that Europe’s economy, industry and employment take full advantage of what digitalisation offers.<\/p>\n

Perhaps most illuminating of all is a fact sheet produced by the European Commission<\/a> on the\u00a0Digital Single Market. Titled ‘Why we need a Digital Single Market,’\u00a0it presents interesting stats on the number of Europeans accessing the Internet every day, which is 315 million by the way, to statistics that back up the approach to the three key pillars outlined above.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There is one tiny but crucially important piece of data at the very end of the fact sheet that states that ‘almost half the EU population (47%) is not properly digitally skilled, yet in the near future, 90% of jobs will require some level of digital skills.’ Even if the \u20ac415bn rings true and hundreds of thousands of jobs are created, that wealth and new jobs will skip those that are not properly trained.<\/p>\n

Here’s the thing – getting yourself to a level of digital skills required to participate is not that difficult.<\/p>\n

We took our first steps back in October with our first online eLearning course and we did what we know best – the basics of bookkeeping and accounting<\/a>. It’s called Account-Ability. Check it out,<\/a> it’s free, it’s easy to follow and it’s packed full of great tips.<\/p>\n

Watch this space as we will follow up with some more eLearning initiatives to help small business owners get to grips with the basics of digital skills.<\/p>\n

We’ve been told that this new business opportunity is coming. Let’s be prepared to play our part.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interesting that\u00a02016 marks the arrival of EU Digital Single Market, yet aside from a feature in today’s Irish Examiner\u00a0that\u00a0Irish firms…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66,65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-advice","8":"category-small-business"},"yoast_head":"\n2016 marks arrival of \u20ac415bn EU Digital Single Market - Big Red Cloud<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The digital single market promises to make a significant impact on EU business in general but only those that are properly trained will reap the rewards.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bigredcloud.com\/en\/2016-marks-arrival-of-eu-digital-single-market\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2016 marks arrival of \u20ac415bn EU Digital Single Market\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The digital single market promises to make a significant impact on EU business in general but only those that are properly trained will reap the rewards.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/bigredcloud.com\/en\/2016-marks-arrival-of-eu-digital-single-market\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Big Red Cloud\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/SimpleOnlineAccounts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-12-04T10:15:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-03-24T12:52:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/bigredcloud.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Digital-Single-Market-Image.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"401\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"267\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Big Red Cloud\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@BigRedCloud\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@BigRedCloud\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Big Red Cloud\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"2016 marks arrival of \u20ac415bn EU Digital Single Market - 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