Digital Boost hits another milestone in supporting small businesses to become digitally enabled

The government-funded platform is run in partnership with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and the private sector to realise the Government’s vision of achieving “the most digitally enabled small business sector in the world”.

“Digital Boost is a game changer for many small businesses who cannot afford consultants, expensive software packages or training courses to become digitally present,” says Malcolm Luey, Director of Innovation, MBIE.

“The platform has paved the way for small businesses to take control of their digital presence and not be intimidated by changing technologies to ultimately increase productivity, resilience, and sustainability in an ever-changing technological world.

“The value is clearly seen with over 23% of casual users and 39% of weekly users reporting improved revenue for their business by making use of the tools and skills learnt on the platform.”

The Digital Boost platform boasts over 1,200 online training videos covering “how to’s”, real world success stories and question and answer sessions. It caters for varying degrees of tech proficiency from the novice to the intermediate user and allows users to check how they are doing with their digital presence through tools like Checkable.

Steve Ayers, founder of Appleby Games, credits Digital Boost for showing him how to set up his business and succeed. Applying his learnings from Digital Boost to the business he started 2 years ago, Steve estimates that he will be turning over about $1 million this financial year.

“The one thing that stood out for me with Digital Boost and that really drew me in, was that it was clearly made for people like me – grassroots Kiwis who have grafted a business from scratch,” Ayers says.

Digital Boost is already exploring more videos and tools that can be added to the platform,  and are committed to supporting small businesses on their digital capability journey till at least December 2024.

Visit the Digital Boost website(external link)