Phil Offer, Optus Small and Medium Business, Marketing Director said, "As we see more businesses affected by slowing economy, Australian SMB owners understand that during a downturn, financial management is imperative and cash flow a key indicator for success.

"With some training small businesses could save themselves time and be positioned to come out ahead when business conditions improve. One way to break this cycle is through skills coaching and community discussion online.

"Our research found over 60 per cent of Australian small business owners want more grassroots advice and training so we have designed an advice-based website for them called www.BizThinkTank.com.au," Mr Offer said.

Supporting Optus' initiative for more web-based skills tools is the finding that 39 per cent of small business owners go to the web for business advice. Of these 88 per cent use search engines, 73 per cent go to Government sites and 40 per cent use specialist small business skills websites.

"The BizThinkTank site has already attracted thousands of registered users. Feedback on our forum pages tells us that SMB owners are finding the free of charge BizThinkTank website a valuable resource for current information and advice on how to run a business. We will continue to invest to create new and relevant content on an ongoing basis," Mr Offer said

Some of the other findings from the research include:

• Strongest business skills for small business owners are: Human Resources and Staff management (20%), followed by Financial Management (19%) and Sales (17%)
• Weakest business skills are: IT (35%) followed by Financial Management (16%) and Marketing (15%)
• The top three desired areas of skills training for SMB owners are: IT (31%), Finance (17%) and Marketing (15%)
• The top three training formats that SMB owners prefer are: small group training (36%), advice from their accountant (23%) and personal business coaching (19%)
• The top three sources for business skills advice are: accountants (72%), SMB websites (39%) and media sources (35%).

Note to Editors:

BizThinkTank is designed to provide relevant information and advice for Australian small businesses. It includes a wealth of information for customers such as downloadable podcasts, vodcasts, interactive forums for discussion and networking, as well as ongoing polls.

Optus applies the Australian Bureau of Statistics definition of small businesses as 1 to 19 employees and medium business as 20 to 199. As of December 2007, there are 1,927,590 businesses that fall into this category or 96 per cent of all Australian businesses.

The research was undertaken by Woolcott Research’s Small Business Omnibus service and random telephone interviewing in September 2008.

N = 500 small to medium businesses (SMB’s) were surveyed and the resultant sample was:

a) Australian Small Businesses with less than 20 employees: n = 450
b) Australian Medium Sized Businesses: n = 50

Media contact:
Simone Bergholcs
Optus Corporate Affairs
Tel: (02) 8082 7850