Albanese government pledges $18.6 million to small business digital training grants

The federal government has committed a further $18.6 million to boost the digital competency of small businesses across Australia, extending a program providing SMEs advice on e-commerce, social media strategy, and cybersecurity.

On Monday, Small Business Minister Julie Collins announced the Albanese government will fund a new round of the Digital Solutions — Australian Small Business Advisory Services (ASBAS) Program.

The program will offer grants to service providers across the country, with the goal of providing affordable, accessible advice to small businesses looking to upgrade their digital presence.

Successful service providers will then guide small businesses on digitising their operations, online sales, social media strategy, business software competency, and key cybersecurity protocols.

Collins says the program will help small businesses capitalise on the surge of online activity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When the pandemic hit, Australians turned to the internet for their shopping, and many have stayed there,” she said.

“This program helps businesses to recognise and grasp the opportunities that going online can offer, so they can survive and grow.

“We know people want to support their local small businesses, and we want to make that easier by helping them get online.”

Funding for the digital grant program will be broken down into three tranches: organisations in NSW and the ACT will receive $6.51 million, as will those across SA, Victoria and Tasmania.

Grant recipients in Queensland, WA, and the NT will share in $5.58 million.

Applications open September 19. Successful grant recipients will offer their advisory services over three years, starting in April 2023.

Funding for the expanded digital ASBAS program arrives just days ahead of the Jobs and Skills Summit, where lawmakers, small business leaders, and policy heavyweights will discuss the competencies needed to drive productivity into the future.

Some groundwork has already been laid: bookkeeping platform MYOB and the government-backed Digital Skills Organisation last week declared a new partnership, designed to formulate a ‘digital fluency’ standard for SMEs.

In addition, the Productivity Commission recently revealed its interim report focused on the data and digital “dividend” available to businesses which retool their practices to compete in the economy of the future.

“Real cost reductions are not the only way that digital and data enabled productivity improvements benefit Australians,” the report found.

“The fruits of productivity growth can also be experienced as quality improvements — the things that get better (in measured and unmeasured ways); and new things — inventions so novel that they can be said not to have existed before and perhaps were not even conceived of by most people, but which create new value for society.”