769

Summary

Businesses across Europe – large and small – will be impacted in some way by the European Union’s (EU’s) Digital Agenda aimed at generating economic growth through better use of technology. They will need to comply with new EU rules and regulations related to how they store information, process business documents, or do business across borders.

At the core of the Digital Agenda are 100 planned actions on topics including the EU’s digital single market, trust and security, and the development of e-skills.  Among the 100 are activities aimed at increasing the take up of electronic invoicing across Europe, and initiatives to support small and medium sized businesses to use technology to gain competitive advantage.

According to the European Commission, the ICT sector is directly responsible for 5 per cent of European GDP, with a market value of €660 billion annually. As such, it is important businesses are fully prepared and able to take advantage of the opportunities that the digital agenda will create through the adoption of technology.

Related Articles

Regulatory maze: Rolling out a pan-European cloud

Cloud Computing is considered one of the biggest enablers of business growth in Europe today, with the power to change the way IT delivers economic value to countries, cities, industries and businesses.

But there are a number of challenges for businesses that wish to embrace the cloud, especially for businesses that span multiple EU countries. A number of laws exist across member states regarding what data can be stored or shared with other areas of a business, both locally within the national operation, as well as in other European countries. This means companies often find it challenging to set up a single cloud service for all of their EU operations since many countries do not permit certain data to be housed outside national borders.

Ricoh Europe has successfully navigated this regulatory maze to deploy a unified cloud environment across its European operations.

 

Energising the European Economy One Step at a Time through Electronic Invoicing

Energising the European Economy One Step at a Time through Electronic Invoicing

January 2013 marks a significant milestone for one key action of the European Union’s Digital Agenda as the deadline for member states to legislate so electronic and paper invoices are treated equally – removing one of the barriers to European-wide implementation of electronic invoicing (e-invoicing).

Today however, most European businesses are far from prepared. For many businesses looking to switch from paper to electronic invoicing, there are still a number of obstacles to adopting a fully digitised process. The main barriers appear to be the lack of technological expertise or capacity, limited trust in the security of digitised data, and the lack of acceptance by suppliers and customers who are not quite ready to let go of paper systems.

  • Poll

    • What will drive the biggest changes of your business critical processes?

  • Big data
  • Social media in business
  • A paperless office
  • More computing power, storage and bandwidth via the “cloud”
  • Decentralised employee decision making
  • Customer led-innovation