A recent survey of 760 business owners – conducted by DIY website builder WebEden.co.uk – has found that UK start-up businesses are now carrying out tasks themselves rather than outsourcing these to a professional. When asked for the main reason they chose the DIY option, over 50% of respondents answered that the key factor was ‘retaining control of the process/end product’. Saving money was listed as the third most popular reason.

The survey results also showed that 38% of these DIY business websites were already generating, or were expected to generate, over 50% of the entire company turnover. Some 93% of respondents said they updated their website at least once a month, with 70% updating weekly and 33% updating daily.

In addition, 20% of respondents said they had previously paid to have a website built for them and 61% of those who had taken on their own website creation had never had any formal design experience.

Comment: This survey found that saving money was only the third most popular reason for a ‘DIY’ website. In the current economic climate, this has to be a significant factor in any business decision – as businesses strive to remain competitive and profitable by controlling expenditure while new business opportunities and sales are not as buoyant as they might be.

It’s not only websites that are attracting the DIY approach. A recent straw poll of UK businesses – admittedly not as scientific as a full blown survey – has revealed that businesses are also tending to opt for an in-house DIY approach in terms of:

• marketing but not sales activities,
• purchase/bought ledger but not sales ledger activities and
• staff learning & development – especially in terms of e-learning materials being produced in-house via such tools as Articulate

It’s interesting what businesses see as ‘so important we must use a professional whatever the cost’ (such as accountancy/ tax matters) and ‘we’ll do the best we can with what we’ve got in order to save money’ (such as learning & development activities and marketing/PR activities, including website design).

How much more competitive, successful and profitable would UK businesses be if they adopted a fully professional approach? It looks like we’ll never know.