Compare the markets dot com
Channel companies on the lookout for opportunities further afield may do well to consider the Continent.
Across Europe, technological progress has been varied, suggesting where the IT channel could profitably invest - especially since €800bn (£627m) was earmarked for the European Structural Funding Programme 2014-2020, with IT highlighted as a key growth enabler.
"Europe needs to make massive investments to secure its digital future. Those investments are often linked in interesting ways and will need to be funded from a wide range of private and public sources," suggests Neelie Kroes, vice president of the European Commission (EC).
More must be spent on digital across the European economic area, she says: "The benefits of going digital are clear: cities need to be more sustainable and productive, and communities that are not cities need to be connected to them to be sustainable in a social and economic sense."
Trends in e-commerce
The EC's Digital Agenda 2020, partly helmed by Kroes (pictured, right), looks at digital transformation in each EU member state, as well as several candidates and allies, in its annual progress reports.
Of particular interest to a range of innovative technology providers in the channel, perhaps, is that e-commerce, the cloud and mobility are all considered by authorities across the EU as engines driving IT-enabled economic growth.
Meanwhile, new and developing rules that standardise national sales laws, data privacy legislation, and that improve interoperability, data portability and reversibility are all set to emerge as the EC moves to accelerate cloud adoption.
Currently, average uptake of e-commerce across the EU is 47 per cent and 72 per cent of EU residents go online at least once a week. Just 12 per cent have indulged in e-commerce across borders - with more being seen in the smaller countries, such as Finland and Denmark, where 32 per cent of residents have traded across borders online according to the latest EC statistics.
More enterprises than SMBs sell online - with OECD figures for 2012 stating that a company with 250 staff is about 20 per cent more likely to sell online than one with 10 to 49 staff. Yet SMBs make up something like 99 per cent of businesses, accounting for 40 to 70 per cent of all value added to an economy worldwide, again according to OECD figures.
So far, only 14 per cent of European SMBs sell products or services online; in places such as Italy and Bulgaria, just five per cent of small firms take advantage of the opportunity presented by online sales. In Bulgaria, just eight per cent of large enterprises sell online.
Could there be a role for channel companies domiciled in countries with wider experience of e-commerce to help SMBs in some of these other nations get the benefits?
This may mean outsourcing. The OECD digital economy paper Electronic and Mobile Commerce 2013 states: "A variety of market-based solutions have developed that are helping to reduce barriers to e-commerce for small- and medium-sized firms.
"New platforms have emerged that allow firms to outsource many tasks from simple e-commerce transactions to comprehensive operations including marketing management, payment processing and delivery of goods to end users for a percentage of the revenue."
The benefits of e-commerce, according to the OECD paper, relate to both B2C and B2B transactions.
This may not be just about resale of appropriate solutions, but helping organisations adjust to cultural change and see where IT can help them. This means consultancy as well as a sophisticated "solutions"-oriented approach - and in some areas, government funding may be available.
Underneath all that is the need for local infrastructure that supports the speed, security, scale and availability of cloud offerings that may be both mobile and relied on in real time.
For a specific e-commerce comparison, in Denmark 26 per cent of SMBs sell online. In Norway and the Czech Republic, the figure is 25 per cent; in Sweden and Iceland, 23 per cent.
Best at e-commerce in overall population terms is the so-called "nation of shopkeepers" UK and also Denmark, where 77 per cent of the population have engaged in e-commerce in the past year. Norway and Sweden are not far behind, with 73 per cent.
Wealthy Luxembourg is at 70 per cent - and unsurprisingly, 64 per cent of the overall population bought online across borders in the last year. Finland - where 65 per cent have bought or sold online in the last 12 months - comes in next.
On the other end of the scale, just eight per cent of Romanians and 12 per cent of Bulgarians have done any e-commerce in the last year. Then comes Italy - 20 per cent; Estonia - 23 per cent; Greece and Portugal - 25 per cent; and Lithuania and Croatia at 26 per cent.
However, 20 per cent of SMBs in Lithuania sell online, well above the EU average of 14 per cent, which may seem to suggest the taste for e-commerce is there, even if it is not yet being widely practised by consumers.
According to EC figures, average coverage of fixed broadband across the EU is 97 per cent; the Netherlands and Belgium boasts 100 per cent, with 98 per cent accessing at least 30Mbps - compared with the EU average of 62 per cent. France also has 100 per cent fixed coverage and good rates of 30Mbps or faster access, as does the UK.
Nations with a more thinly dispersed, less urbanised population as well as the less-developed regions tend to have less complete fixed-broadband coverage - sometimes filling in the gaps to some extent with mobile (such as 4G) or wireless solutions of various kinds.
Generally, broadband penetration is relatively evenly distributed across the EU, with many nations either at 100 per cent coverage or close to it. The stragglers appear to be Slovakia, with 85 per cent fixed-broadband penetration; Estonia with 87 per cent; Poland with 88 per cent; Slovenia at 89 per cent; and Romania at 90 per cent.
A high-tech public sector?
Traditionally, the public sector has been a key market for many channel IT providers.
Today, just 41 per cent of EU citizens, across all member states, can use the internet to access so-called e-government services. Only five per cent of Romanians did so in 2013, according to the EC.
And across the EU, only 36 per cent of hospitals and 28 per cent of GPs have a broadband connection of 50Mbps or faster - meaning that many nations may be failing to benefit from the advantages that can be delivered via e-health initiatives.
Fifty-five per cent of EU hospitals, on average, are able to exchange clinical information with other medical practitioners or healthcare institutions, and 28 per cent of GPs. In Bulgaria, just nine per cent of GPs are able to do so, EC figures say.
Just nine per cent of hospitals across the EU are able to provide patients with access to even a part of their medical records - even relatively digitally well-off Belgium can do so for only 10 per cent of patients.
In French hospitals, just 14 per cent have a 50Mbps or faster broadband connection, which suggests an opportunity, given that 60 per cent exchange clinical information with other providers or professionals.
Swedish FlagFor comparison, in Sweden, where 92 per cent of the population used the internet at least once a week in 2013, 73 per cent used e-government services online that year. A full 100 per cent of Swedish hospitals had a broadband connection of 50Mbps or faster, and 56 per cent of GPs.
However, even in Sweden, still just eight per cent of hospitals provided patients with access to at least part of their own medical records in 2013, according to the EC. And in Germany, none do so.
Skills on the ground
Of course, to take any opportunity on board, the right skills must be sourced. Where should the enterprising IT products and services provider invest in skills or expect in-house skills to command the largest premium?
If you're hoping to hire locally, your best bets might include the Netherlands, where only 13 per cent of the local workforce has few or no IT skills; Iceland, where just 14 per cent don't have at least some IT-savvy; or Denmark, which boasts a population where just 15 per cent of the workforce have few or no digital skills.
The next best-trained workforces when it comes to IT are Luxembourg, Norway, Finland, and Sweden, according to the EC.
On the other hand, the economies which may benefit most from the deployment of your own highly skilled feet on the ground are Romania and Bulgaria, where 83 per cent and 77 per cent, respectively, of the working populations have few or no IT skills.
And at least half of the workforces of Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Poland also have few digital skills, with Croatia, Portugal and Lithuania not that far behind.
One possible channel opportunity in the less-skilled member states might be training and support services.
Especially if the right local language skills can be sourced, there may well be a range of chances for firms across Europe to not only show their mettle in a brave new digital landscape but assist their fellows to develop their skills and enjoy more of the benefits of the latest technologies themselves.