The Access Group has announced that it is offering $100,000 in small-business software grants to 10 selected businesses, as well as free software health checks for businesses that apply for the grant, designed to help diagnose and solve software-related business challenges.
The announcement comes in the wake of recent figures that business failure rates are at a 15-year high, with 58.5 per cent of small businesses failing between June 2019 and June 2023, and that small businesses are spending $38 billion on software alone each year, according to Gartner
On top of this, Gartner says that IT spending in Australia is expected to grow by 7.8 per cent in 2024, compared to the previous year due largely to more businesses learning about the link between suitable software, productivity, and profitability.
“Businesses are having a challenging time keeping up with technology-driven change and increasing costs of doing business, so as a global software provider with more than 30 years’ experience providing solutions to more than 60,000 customers, we’re putting our money where our mouth is,” Access APAC President, Kerry Agiasotis, said.
“We want to use our scale and expertise to give something back when businesses are doing it tough, so we’re giving away ten $10,000 grants for small businesses in Australia and New Zealand,” Agiasotis added. “Forget Black Friday discounts, this goes beyond a promotion and delivers real and lasting value, to positively impact the survival rates of the businesses that our country relies on. Whether you’re experiencing cashflow pain, slow or no growth, out-of-control costs, or you can’t quite put your finger on it, we want to help you diagnose the problem and set you on the path to recovery.”
Access say that their grants, alongside the free software health check, are designed to help businesses address the rising costs of business operations, particularly on the software side.
“Importantly, we don’t want to give better rates to new customers than we do to our long-term and loyal ones,” Agiosotis said. “And that’s why we’ve been sure to open the grants up to our existing customer base as well.”
The grants are open to any Australian or New Zealand business with a turnover of $10 million or less.
