The online economy is expected to double by 2016, according to a new report. Image courtesy of: sxc.hu
The online economy of the G20 countries is expected to double by 2016, according to a new report recently published by
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
A surge in the number of global internet users will push its value from $2.3tn in 2010 to $4.2tn in 2016. Other key drivers include increasing internet activity in emerging markets, the growth of social media and the popularity of mobile devices.
In
The Digital Manifesto: How Companies and Countries Can Win in the Digital Economy, BCG makes the case that businesses will be fundamentally transformed over the next five years, and urges action by both states and businesses, including the creation of a “digital balance sheet.”
The manifesto, the latest in a series of BCG reports on the rise of the Internet, was launched today during the Annual Conference of the
World Economic Forum in Davos, at a discussion hosted by BCG and Google.
“No company or country can afford to ignore this development. Every business needs to go digital,” said David Dean, a coauthor of the report and a senior partner at BCG. “The ‘new’ Internet is no longer largely Western, accessed from your PC. It is now global, ubiquitous, and participatory.”
The report outlines major shifts that are occurring that change the nature of the internet and its market, such as the shift from a luxury good to an ordinary good, and from a fundamentally passive experience to a participatory one.
According to the report, these issues are often misunderstood or not considered by corporate executives and policymakers.
At the Davos discussion, Patrick Pichette, Google’s senior vice president and chief financial officer said, “Understanding the economic potential of the Web should be an urgent priority for leaders. The Digital Manifesto makes a powerful case for countries and companies to get online and reap the rewards of an age of data.”
The report makes a solid case for all small and medium-sized enterprises to start trading online, if they are not already.
In the U.K., total sales of businesses with a medium or high Internet presence rose by 4.1 percent each year from 2007 to 2010, around seven times faster than ‘low-Web’ and ‘no-Web’ businesses.
This isn’t the first time SMEs have been urged to get online; earlier this month, Dragon’s Den entrepreneur Doug Richard said the web is a useful tool for SMEs to
reach out to domestic and overseas clients in the face of tough competition.