Running a business is not easy, especially now in the post-pandemic world additionally hit by the war in Ukraine. Businesses in the UK already struggle and the coming months and years don’t look much better. It will be much worse before it will get any better. That’s the reality.
Obviously, not all businesses will suffer. Once it’s all over the big ones will be even bigger. And richer. Obviously more powerful. Apparently, 2021 was the biggest year in modern history in mergers and acquisitions. The ones that will struggle are small businesses. They are the ones without cash reserves and without access to additional funds. When the economy shrinks the small businesses will be the ones to fight for survival.
And yet, even among small businesses there is a group that is going to struggle more. Businesses in rural areas are the ones that are already handicapped. When the pandemic came businesses all over the world started looking into digital as the only way to reach out to customers and survive lockdowns. Having a website wasn’t enough any more. The website had to talk to users and convert them into customers, into revenues. Brands invested heavily in e-commerce developments, digital marketing especially through PPC and social media channels.
To be able to do it business needs access to internet and rural areas are notorious for that. Fibre rollouts in the UK are delayed and many areas won’t get proper broadband for years. Fibre connectivity needs infrastructure which in turn requires time. And let’s be honest, in many cases there is no revenue justifying building rural infrastructure. It’s a lot of work with little to no return. Density of population in rural areas is often too low to get return on investment that would incentivise companies like BT to deploy anything there in years. That’s the reality.
Back to businesses. In the new world of digital rural businesses require access to business grade broadband. There are companies specialising in business broadband but, like with anything else it’s a question of scale. It is much easier to find business customers in urbanised areas where a little effort can often bring high return on investment. Rural areas are different. It is much more difficult to target rural businesses with both traditional and digital advertising to be worth money spent. So, the reality, again, is that not too many business broadband providers focus on rural areas and rural businesses. Especially, that many of these businesses are too small to be considered to be businesses at all. A small business run form the office in the garden is not a target for business grade broadband. These businesses don’t need specialised offer, upgraded hardware, cloud solutions. For providers they are like home broadband users.
One in four businesses in the UK is registered in rural area. In 2020 there were 551,000 businesses registered in rural areas. These businesses employ 3.6 million people, 13% of all people employed by businesses in the United Kingdom. Surprisingly, rural areas have more businesses per capita in rural than in urban areas. Excluding London, obviously. Most of these businesses are small. 16.3% of rural businesses have no employees and further 72% have between 1 and 9 employees. Irrespectively of size, they all need internet access to be able to compete in today’s world. The size of the business matters here. As this big chunk of UK’s economy is underserved by broadband providers, including business broadband offers, they also require bit less than big businesses. This makes it easier when it comes to alternative broadband providers. This is in rural areas where mobile broadband and satellite internet thrive. 4G broadband connectivity is much more popular in rural areas than in urban areas. The same with satellite broadband. After all, it’s much easier to install a 4G router and maybe external antenna than to run costly broadband infrastructure with fibre optics. Satellite installation can be done in couple hours only and all the customer needs is clear view of the sky. These alternative providers are often responsible for existence of rural businesses. They give the competitive advantage to those who would otherwise need to give up. They bring connectivity to underserved areas, homes and businesses alike, even if their offer is not as sophisticated as business grade broadband offered by fibre providers. Thanks to connectivity LTE and satellite rural broadband providers bring, businesses in rural areas are able to contact their suppliers and customers, engage in ecommerce and social media platforms the same way big businesses do. Sometimes better.
Rural economy today is strong, despite Brexit, pandemic and inflation. Over the past few years many talented people decided to move from their urban apartments to more spacious houses in the countryside and the chances are one day they will also think about setting up businesses there. This will boost the need for broadband and business broadband in particular enriching rural areas and changing the mindsets. The technology is there, the need is there. What’s left is to provide for the need.
