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SELECTED CHARACTERISTICS OF AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS

This is the third release from the 2015-16 Business Characteristics Survey (BCS) and presents summary data for a selection of topics including:

- geographic markets in which businesses sold goods or services;
- business finance sought, reasons for seeking debt or equity finance;
- business innovation;
- changes to business performance and activity;
- barriers to innovative activity, skills used in undertaking core business activities, and;
- skills shortage or deficiency in undertaking core business activities.

• Small and/or medium businesses or organisations within Australia are the main suppliers of goods and services to 55% of Australian businesses.

• Compared to the previous year, 35% of businesses reported that their income from the sale of goods and services had increased.

• Lack of access to additional funds was the most commonly reported barrier to the development or introduction of new or significantly improved goods, services, processes or methods (17%).

• Fifteen percent of businesses sought debt or equity finance. Of these, 90% obtained finance.

• The most common type of debt finance sought by businesses was a new loan with a term of more than one year (37%), followed by new capital/finance lease or hire purchase agreement (36%).

• Businesses reported the main reason for seeking debt or equity finance was to maintain short term cash flow or liquidity (36%), followed by finance sought to replace other equipment or machinery (28%).

In addition to results presented in Business Use of Information Technology, 2015-16 (cat. no. 8129.0), this release includes information on business use of IT by innovation status.

Innovation-active businesses are businesses which undertook any innovative activity during the reference period including: introduction of any type of innovation; and/or the development or introduction either still in progress or abandoned.

• Over half of innovation-active businesses reported a social media presence (53%), compared to less than a quarter of non-innovation active businesses (24%).

• 30% of non innovation-active businesses with 0-4 persons employed have a web presence, compared to 57% of innovation-active businesses with the same employment size.

• The Mining industry had the greatest proportion of businesses reporting a decrease across a number of performance indicators in comparison to the previous year:
  - total number of jobs or positions(27%);
  - productivity of business (23%);
  - expenditure on IT (14%);
  - level of contracting out work or outsourcing (11%);
  - amount of structured/formal training for employees (9%) and;
  - social contributions (9%).

• This industry had the greatest proportion of businesses seeking debt or equity finance (29%).

• The Mining industry also recorded the greatest proportion of businesses with a lack of access to additional funds (27%) and a lack of customer demand for goods and services (23%) as barriers hampering general business activities or performance.

• The highest proportion of businesses that introduced new methods of organising work responsibilities and decision making was within the Mining industry (18%).

• Barriers to the introduction of new goods, services, processes or methods were recorded by more than half of the Manufacturing industry (52%), with a quarter (25%) reporting a lack of access to additional funds as a barrier.

• The Manufacturing industry had the highest proportion of businesses that reported a lack of skilled persons within the business (16%) and a lack of skilled persons within the labour market (16%).

• Less than a quarter of businesses (24%) in the Manufacturing industry reported the use of any intellectual property protection methods.

• A total of 11% of businesses in the Healthcare and social assistance industry reported entering into a formal agreement or contract to supply goods or services to government agencies.

• The Health care and social assistance industry had the highest proportion of businesses to receive government funding across all industries (22%). Within this industry, 12% of businesses reported receiving grants, 7% of businesses reported receiving ongoing funding, 6% received tax concessions and 4% received subsidies.

• Businesses in the Health care and social assistance industry had the smallest proportion of businesses that relied on a small number of customers and clients (28%).