Statistician's Comment

Commenting on the release, Devin Zibulsky, Statistician in the Business Statistics Division, said: 

“The Information Society Statistics - Enterprises 2022 results show the extent of digitalisation among Irish businesses. By surveying enterprises about a broad range of areas including internet access and use, e-commerce, Information & Communications Technology (ICT) and the environment, ICT security, and the use of robots, this release gives a robust picture of the ways in which ICT is used in business practices. Topics and items asked on the survey can change from year to year to reflect the development and emergence of new technologies and their role in business.

In 2022, the results reveal a slowdown in the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on ICT practices, as 15% of enterprises had an increase in web sales due to the pandemic, compared with 19% in 2021. Almost a quarter (24%) of enterprises increased their use of social media, down from 31% in 2021. These decreases may reflect the lifting of pandemic-related restrictions and the widespread adoption of digital technology that had already occurred prior to 2022.

Internet Access and Usage and E-Commerce

Nearly all enterprises (97%) have broadband internet access. Many of these enterprises use the internet to conduct remote meetings (64%) and provide remote access to email (77%), documents (63%), and business software (81%). However, differences emerged depending on the size of the enterprise. The proportion of small enterprises (10-49 persons engaged) conducting remote meeting was 58% compared with 97% of large enterprises (250 or more persons engaged).  Almost three-quarters (74%) of small business provided remote access to email compared with 97% of large enterprises, access to documents was 58% compared with 93%, and access to business software was 78% compared with 97%.

Nearly half of all enterprises (49%) had e-commerce purchases, while more than four in ten (44%) had e-commerce sales. Overall, more than one-third of enterprises (35%) had e-commerce sales to customers in Ireland, which was the most common location for e-commerce sales, while 11% of enterprises had e-commerce sales to customers in other EU member states, and a further 12% had e-commerce sales to customers outside of the EU.

ICT and the Environment and ICT Security

To assess current topics of interest in ICT, the survey contained new items on ICT and the environment and re-introduced previous items on ICT security last asked in 2019.

More than four-in-ten (44%) enterprises applied measures to reduce paper, while one in five (20%) applied measures to reduce energy. More than half (56%) of enterprises said they consider the environmental impact when selecting ICT services.

More than a third (36%) of enterprises offered voluntary ICT security training, one-in-four (25%) made ICT security training compulsory, while 37% included ICT security training as a contractual requirement of employment. In 2022 14% of enterprises experienced an unavailability of ICT services from either an unintentional cause or an intentional attack, while 2% experienced a destruction or corruption of data, and 1% experienced a disclosure of confidential data.

Use of Robots

In 2022 enterprises were asked about their use of robots. Some 4% of all enterprises reported the use of either industrial or service robots, with a 20% rate of usage of robots in large enterprises. Among enterprises that use robots, 71% use robots to ensure high precision of processes, 58% to enhance workplace safety, 33% to expand the range of goods and services provided, 31% because of high labour costs, 18% because of difficulty recruiting personnel, and 12% because of tax incentives."