Digital High Street Advisory Board unveils strategy

The Digital High Street Advisory Board, which was formed in April last year to find solutions on how the high street can evolve and adapt to the digital revolution, has announced a five-year strategy that aims to reinvigorate the UK’s traditional high streets.

Following the publication of its Digital High Street 2020 report, which address how stakeholders in town centre communities, including small businesses, public service providers and charities, can benefit from integrating traditional high streets with digital technologies, the advisory board has proposed the adoption of four major digital initiatives to reinvigorate the high streets by 2020.

The five-year strategy includes introducing targets for town centre infrastructure and connectivity, including broadband, mobile and WiFi, while also eliminating the gap in basic digital skills for individuals, small businesses and charities through regionally coordinated programmes.

In addition, the board hopes that a centralised High Street Digital Lab can be established to provide the UK’s 1,200 towns and their high street businesses with ready-to-use digital capabilities and dedicated town-by-town digital skills training, leveraging a network of digital apprenticeships for every UK town centre in the UK.

The final proposal involves the introduction of the first UK High Street Digital Health Index, which will be an interactive benchmark for towns and local authorities to drive assessment and change across key measures of digital health including infrastructure, basic digital skills, high street attraction and digital engagement.

Digital strategy proposed to save UK high streets

John Walden, chief executive of Home Retail Group and chairman of The Digital High Street Advisory Board, said: “The digital revolution is arguably the most disruptive factor affecting our communities, but its effects are not often considered central to high street revitalisation.

“Many members of UK town centres are struggling to keep up with consumers in terms of their digital capabilities, and given the pace of digital growth many towns lack sufficient infrastructure and basic digital skills. I believe that the business-oriented Board has provided recommendations that, taken together, can restore our high streets to vibrancy in a digital future, into 2020 and beyond.”

The report found that the high street needs to change to remain viable, especially to compete with the 24/7 “always on” internet window shopping that it claims has changes shopping forever. It notes that 60 percent of adults use a mobile phone or tablet to access the internet on the go, and with more than 150 billion pounds of retail sales influenced by digital, but it adds that retailers with services that fail to meet customers’ expectations risk losing over 12 billion pounds in sales a year.

In addition, the report findings show that only half of small businesses have a website and just 33 percent of SMEs currently transact online, as 31 percent of all such organisations lack basic online skills. With recent estimates showing that digital technology could potential unlock 18.8 billion pounds of revenue for SMEs, while reducing their costs by up to 20 percent and increasing customer satisfaction and retention, it shows how important digital integration is.

Helen Dickinson, director general of the British Retail Consortium added: “British high streets have weathered sweeping changes in society, economic cycles, property development and retail expansion, and the seismic impact of digital technology on communications, entertainment and commerce.

“Our communities have survived these changes to varying degrees but while what makes a successful high street has not fundamentally changed, the ability to achieve wider future success is now absolutely dependent on embracing the impact of digital and the recommendations of this report provide a strategy to do just that.”

Commenting on the report, Peter Fitzgerald, director at Google UK said: “The vast majority of UK shoppers research online before they buy from a store. This means that every business is a digital business because every consumer is a digital consumer. We hope that this report will be a first step towards improving digital access and expertise among small businesses and help them grow faster and reach more customers.”

The Digital High Street Advisory Board was set up to further the work of the Future High Street Forum, and works under the direction of the Government’s Department of Communities and Local Government. Retailers including Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, Argos and Sainsbury’s are involved, as well as trade bodies the British Retail Consortium and the British Independent Retailers Association, and private sector organisations such as the Department for Business Innovation and Skills.

Image: The Great British High Street